The challenge before northern governors -Suswam

From ROSE EJEMBI, Makurdi.
The dust over the crisis rocking the Nigerian Governors Forum is yet
to settle. Many of the governors have been speaking in discordant
tones since their controversial election to elect their chairman. In
this interview,Benue State governor, Gabriel Suswam speaks on the
development among other national issues.
Excerpts...
The Nigerian Governors Forum has been rocked by several controversies
after the fall out of the election in which two governors are claiming
victory. What is your comment?
The forum is a voluntary forum; no governor is under compulsion to be
a member of that forum. In fact, the governor of Osun hardly attends;
the only meeting he attended was this last one that they said they
were holding election where unfortunatelyhe was the one who recorded
it and sent on u-tube. We never had such level of irresponsibility of
a colleaguerecording activities of colleagues and sending it on
U-tube. That was the first meeting that he was attending. What I am
trying to say is that no governor is under compulsion to attend that.
The founders or those who conceived the idea of governors having a
forum was for us to be able to peer review ourselves. When we sit
down, we look at issues that affect our individual states and when you
aggregate those issues, they become issues that affect the country.
And if we share intelligence and share ideas, we will be able to lead
better; that was the essence of that forum and who coordinates, what
they call chairman of the forum, is not a big deal. We have never had
any election.There has never been an election thatproduced chairman of
the forum. The governor of Rivers was never elected;he was selected.
We just sat down and said look, this is the person who will be our
chairman and so the desperation which he exhibited in the election was
the problem with most of us. And I insisted and I still insist that if
we go into election, any election no matter how small, there are
consequences that comes with it and I raised this in the previous
attempts to have this election. I said we have never elected chairman
of governor's forum; Amaechi himself was not elected and so, why the
election as people call it? Can't we sit down and say look, you've
done this, let the next person do this. But the basic problem was that
because Saraki left, we had an issue and
we decided that no governor should stay for four years as chairman of
the forum. That is two years in the South, two years in the North and
we decided that ok, since democracy itself is taking roots, let us
have a forum that is governed by regulation and rules. And so we said
let us have aconstitution. I was a member, Fashola as a senior lawyer
(SAN) was the chairman of the constitution drafting committee and we
agreed because they gave us terms of reference that the chairmanship
position has to stay two years in the South and two years in and the
deputy chairman must necessarily be from the opposition parties. At
the point that this so callednew constitution was registered, no one
governor, frankly speaking, I challenge any one governor who saw that
constitution; the so called registered one before the day of election;
no one of course. What we believe was that we agreed on this
ashonourable men and leaders and so that is what is going to happen.
Fashola who drafted the constitution Ibelieve still has copies of
that. Somewhere along the line, somebody went and changed what we
agreed on and went and registered it and said that we signed.
Normally, when we go to meetings, all of us signed so they said that
we signed for the registration of the constitution; nothing can be far
from the truth. We already signed and agreed two years. Ask any honest
governor who was there at that time, he will tell you. So, when we
noticed that a constitution suddenly appeared and what was inside was
not what we agreed on, I raised strong objections. We've never
accepted this. First, it is one of the very fundamental problems that
somebody will go and change a constitution for selfish reasons, and we
insisted on that. Well, at the end of the day, they said that the
chairman which we selected, not elected, the election has ended based
on what we agreed on. And so since they said there should be
electronic voting, we said let us go there. When we went there, I have
never seen that, the person who wanted to re-contest printed ballot
papers and had a ballot box and we objected. Even in ordinary village
meeting, once the leadership is to go,the house will first dissolve
itself, but this man said he wasn't going to dissolve himself. He
would sit in as chairman and conduct elections with ballot papers of
which he printed, andprovided ballot boxes and we vehemently opposed
it and they said that they had an election. I learnt thatwhat the
governor of Osun, what he recorded, people were shouting and they said
they were counting, I was among the first governors thatamong the
first governors that walked out of that. Of course, it was a sham; it
is unfortunate that that happened. But majority of the governors had
signed that Jonah Jang should be the chairman of the forum and this is
what happened. We
first held the meeting of Northern Governors. In that meeting of
Northern governors, we were 18. Yobe did not come neither did he send
a representative. So 18 of us unanimously agreed and selected Jang. We
asked Yuguda and Shema to step down unanimously and we voted by show
of hands in the Northern Governors Forum meeting that Jang is the
consensus candidate. We took Jang to the PDP Governors Forum where the
chairman of Northern Governors Forum read the resolution of the
Northern governors which was adopted. Then, we went into this just to
go and present Jang. When we went and the issue of voting came, we
opposed it. We raised issues, first that wasn't the constitution that
we agreed on, second we never had an election, third the chairman must
dissolve the house which he refused, and he printed ballot papers and
had the ballot box. So when they said there was an election, I was not
aware of any election but I know that somebody printed ballot papers.
If I am contesting and I say I will not dissolve myself, common sense
tells me that there is some level of desperation and there is some
funny agenda and that is why the so called election led to what you
term as crisis. Jang as far as I am concerned is the legitimate
chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum and that is what is going to
remain because we never had any election; Jang was selected by
consensus, which has been the tradition of the governors' forum. And
so there is no crisis; Jang is the chairman, the rightful chairman.
What do you have to say about theseemingly polarization of the
Northern Governors Forum?
There is no pretence about it becauseI will find it difficult to sit
in a meetingwhich we attend as leaders. We have taken a decision and
people will go outside and do something else. It is difficult for some
of us to sit in meetings with people like that. And so, it is true the
Northern Governors Forum is polarized. It is polarized because it is
no longer honourable to meet as a people to take a decision. If people
can do that, then most of us don't see reasons why we should sit in
such a meeting because before, any decision that we took was
collective decision. But this point we take a decision and some people
would go out and be saying something different. Of course, Yuguda said
something and I think I fully associate myself with the views
expressed by governor Yuguda. We need to check up ourselves other wise
it will be difficult for us, even theNorthern governors to trust
ourselvesagain because people will not be ready to sit in a meeting
and discuss something knowing that what other people will go out and
do will be different from what we jointly agree on. So that presents
some challenge and difficulty.
Already people have started canvassing for your senatorial ambition
ahead of 2015. Wouldn't you think it is diversionary owing to your
repeated assurances that time is not yet ripe?
As a politician, people who are my supporters would, want me to
continue to be in politics and continue to be relevant in the
political cycle. It is good for people to speculate and urge you to
contest. That means that your ambition is not inordinate; I am not
somebody with inordinate ambition but I have said that at the end of
this year, I should be able to tell you people exactly what I want to
do. For now, I actually want to concentrate on my job as governor. The
speculation as you said,if I go anywhere now, there are banners, there
are shouts and all of that. It creates a lot of distraction actually
and so I want to wait till the end of this year for me to make a
statement on the speculations that you are talking about but it is a
welcome development.
It is generally believed in the state that the Benue North West
senatorial seat is to produce the next governor of the state but it
appears that other segments too are agitating for the same position.
Which of the zones to your mind is supposed to enjoy the slot?
It is not something that I as an individual can sit down here and tell
you that governorship of Benue is zoned to this and that. But what we
normally do is that people will contest. When I contested, people
contested in all the zones but when we sat down as a party that is
within the PDP, it was decided that this governorship should go to
this place. At this point, it is premature for me to say that. You
have people from zone C, from B and from zone A all contesting. I
believe that when Senator Akume contested, it was the same thing, when
I contested, it was also the same thing.
What are your efforts to check the widespread constant attacks by
suspected Fulani herdsmen on innocent indigenes of Benue?All of you
are aware that I made and put in a lot of resources to address the
issues of security. The recent phenomenon of Fulanis attacking our
farmers is something that to some large extent is trying to defy all
solutions that I seek to put in place. I have held meetings with them,
I havedone everything that is humanly possible but we are still
experiencinga lot of challenges in that regard. I have also written to
the president to help the state in addressing some of these issues. We
have taken some recent measures to help address this issue and I will
still be meeting with my colleague from Nassarawa State because the
route that these people take comes through Nasarawa and some of them
when they attack, they recede back into Nasarawa State. So, I need to
seriously address that with my colleague so that jointly, we can keep
some security personnel along our border and the likely routes that
they will take. We have also now started patrolling the waterways
constantly. These are the majors that are taken to curb the incessant
attack of these Fulani mercenaries crossing to attack Benue or
attacking the Benue people who are on the other side of River Benue.
There are other serious security measures which we have taken and I
can assure the people of Benue that as difficult as this is, we are
finding a solution to it. Iswore to protect lives and property and
what I have seen pains me to my bones where children of eight months,
two years are being massacred by these heartless people. I believe
they are not human beings. We must do everything that is humanely
possible to protect lives and properties of people and if it means
taking extreme measures, we will take them to address the incessant
attacks by the Fulani mercenaries.