CHIEF Abu King Shuluwa is a Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In this chat, the politician spoke on a number of happenings both in his state, Benue and at the national level.
What is your take on those that have been selected as ministers by President Buhari?
Initially, I felt he was cycling old people too much. When i looked, i only saw one or two persons who are below 60 years of age in that list. In my opinion, I felt that he should have picked more youths and mix them with the older generation so that they can learn from them. That was my opinion. But on a second thought, I saw that the younger generation has brought about too much misery in this country that we would want the older generation to correct. Therefore, on that note, I support what Buhari has done. He has picked those he felt can help him salvage Nigeria the way he wants.
It looks to some political watchers that the PDP is not prepared for opposition that it has found itself now.
That is very true. What has happened to PDP is what they never envisaged could happen. Nobody ever thought the APC would win this election. Let me be very honest with you. But the actors and players of the PDP failed us. They took everything for granted thinking they were going to win by any means and therefore did not work towards winning the elections. They were busy fighting among themselves. For example, there were two PDPs; old PDP and new PDP. Look at the number of people that decamped and yet PDP was saying there was no problem. Instead of them to find out why the people were leaving the party and find a way to reconcile them and bring them back, they did not. Most of those who left the PDP have won elections in the APC. In Benue for instance, Gemade left PDP and won his election in APC. Ortom went into primaries with PDP candidate and lost because the governor then vowed never to hand over to Ortom. He did everything to frustrate Ortom. It became so bad that anyone who moved close to Ortom was seen as an enemy of the then Governor. Eventually, Ortom could not scale through the PDP Primaries because the primary itself was rigged. It was rigged because all those who contested were asked to step down for the Governor’s preferred candidate on the last day. Ortom then went to the APC and within few days, he contested and won the election. If Ortom was PDP candidate, he would have been a PDP governor. Supposing the ticket of PDP went to Gemade, the PDP would have been the senator in Zone A. I believe that the APC wind that swept across Benue couldn’t have swept like that if we did our homework right. The PDP needs to re strategize instead of making too much noise and accusing themselves. In fact, when you look at the government of today everywhere, those who have won, even Saraki, was he not in PDP? Tambuwal, was he not in PDP? Most of those in APC today were in PDP before. And when they were busy decamping to the APC, PDP was saying it didn’t matter. They were just bluffing them. In politics, nobody invites you. you come in yourself and you can leave when you are dissatisfied. It is now left for the leaders of the PDP to plead with its people and find a workable solution so that they ensure their members don’t decamp to another party anymore. Imposition of candidates killed the PDP. If not, how could they have made Jonathan the sole candidate of the party in a presidential primary that had not been conducted? At the PDP Convention that was held in Abuja, only Jonathan was presented as the sole presidential candidate because they were afraid of any other person. PDP was thrown out of power due to imposition because everywhere, leaders of the party kept imposing candidates on the majority. You can’t continue to impose against the will of the the people. If I like Mr. John and you impose Mr. Emmanuel, I am not going to vote for your imposed candidate. On the day of voting, you will not be there to impose your will on me. No. You, may bring in money as want. I may take the money and not do what you want. That is exactly what happened in Zone A of Benue State. A lot of people took money from Suswam and did not vote for him. They betrayed him. And for some of us who were vocal, we were advising him properly, telling him that this is not good and we became his enemies. Those who were deceiving him became angels. Suswam spent a lot of money in Zone A, yet, what happened? He failed. He couldn’t deliver. He also failed to install a successor. If not, how on earth could a sitting governor in Benue not be able to put his successor in place? He failed because he wanted to play everybody out. Elders in Benue were not involved in the selection of the PDP candidate. We didn’t even know where a decision was taken for the candidate. If we knew, we would have also worked for the candidate. Some of us were completely knocked out of the system. So, what happened? They lost. Can you imagine that it is only two National Assembly members that PDP could produce in Benue? This imposition, we must stop it. If we don’t, I’m sorry. Also, I feel that the PDP should sit back and watch and should not be talking yet. Everybody should sit back and watch where Buhari is going. Give Buhari one year and see whether he will not perform. Then, the PDP can now rise up and criticize him. But right now, PDP is talking too much. What are they talking for? What Buhari has done in 100 days, PDP could not do in 16 years.
Recently, there was a Stakeholders meeting of the PDP in the state. Are you aware?
I wasn’t involved. I was not invited. As of today in Benue State, the leader of the party should be David Mark who is a former Senate President and a ranking senator. If he decides that the state chairman of the party, Dr. Emmanuel Agbo should invite people for a stakeholders meeting without inviting some elders,then it is his problem. As far as I am concerned, PDP in Benue has not yet met or they are not yet serious. If they are serious we will know. I may be Mr. Nobody in PDP in Benue. I may not hold any position in Benue PDP but I know I have an influence. I spoke with the Secretary of the PDP Elders Forum, Dr. Jerry Agada yesterday about the meeting and he said he was not aware of any meeting. So who was at the meeting?
We learnt that the former Governor, Gabriel Suswam was there and…. (he interjects)
Suswam is not the leader of the PDP in Benue State as of today. He was the leader of PDP in Benue by virtue if his position as a governor then but he is no longer the leader because he is no longer governor. A lot of people in Benue would not want me in PDP but since they didn’t ask me to join PDP, they cannot drive me away. I went there on my own volition and I am one of the founding fathers of the party. I spent money to finance and organize PDP and I can leave when I want to leave. Nobody can force me to leave. If I want, a lot of people that are now in APC, we were together in the PDP. But I refused to go and I am here. And if you think you can organize PDP and leave Shuluwa out of it, you are joking.
Probe of Suswam by the incumbent administration, to be or not to be?
Why are people jittery about the probe? We want to know what has happened. if nothing happened, the whole probe that we are talking about will be useless. The probe is to know exactly what has happened to government’s money and property, who has taken this, who has stolen that. if you haven’t stolen anything, why do you worry yourself? I asked myself and I said, why are people talking so much about probe? When Aper Aku left, there was a probe. I was even a member of that probe committee headed by an Air Force Officer. And that committee was named ‘Chalk Panel’. The committee was so named because it was to probe the local government finances particularly as regards the supply of chalk. The chalk was ordered and paid for but never supplied. The chalk was ‘bought’ to be used in Benue for the next 200 years to come. At the end of that probe, five permanent secretaries were dismissed. When Adasu came into power, there was a probe panel headed by Agbenda. Agbenda was severally locked up. Akume came in and because he was the one who put Suswam as governor and because Suswam was eager to be governor and had no experience, he did not probe Akume at all because he knew he didn’t want to be probed too. But I want you know that Ortom came in at the time Nigeria was at the verge of collapse due to corruption. He came in when salaries were not paid. Projects in the last four years were not being done. But then, there are debts and every debt is supposed to be tied to projects. And if you have borrowed so much money and those monies are not tied to projects, where have they gone? But I would advise Ortom not to probe individuals. He should probe what has happened in Benue and the individuals will come in. He should not say he is probing this man or that man. No. Ortom is probing debts that have calculated over a period if time. He wants to know what has happened because he has to pay those debts. If Ortom is governor of Benue today and he doesn’t probe to know why he is inheriting some of these debts, how is he gong to function? I think people should leave sentiments apart because every government in Nigeria is being probed at one point or another when they leave office, particularly in Benue. So, it is very proper for Ortom to probe Suswam’s administration and the issue of witch-hunting doesn’t arise. Ortom is not witch-hunting anybody. If you ask the generality of people in Benue, they would say they want to know where their money has gone. This is because our children’s children will have to pay this debt.
How would you assess the amnesty programme of Governor Ortom?
The amnesty programme of Governor Ortom was what I advocated for Boko Haram some years back. I said what happened in the south-south where militia brought out their weapons and they were being trained in South-Africa, Korea, Japan as Pilots and as technicians, I said they should replicate that in the north-east with Boko Haram too. I said they should give them amnesty too because they are also militia. Nobody heed to my call that time. Ortom has decided to retrieve those weapons. If he hasn’t got any policy and want to do with those people, then he hasn’t done anything yet. Retrieving the weapons alone will not solve the problem because some of these weapons are not totally retrieved. Those who are giving us those weapons are probably giving us a fraction of what they have. And if you have nothing to do with them, they will go back to what they were doing before. So, it is not enough to say give them N200,000 or N100,000. They will go and sound it and after two months if the don’t have anything again what next? They go back to their old lives. So, what the Ortom government has done on this amnesty programme is good but their must be policies to sustain it. And I think this amnesty in Benue has to be tied to the amnesty of the federal government. And the Ministry of Niger-Delta which is presently taking care of the amnesty programme in that region should now be renamed to capture the whole country.
Recently, former governor Suswam was invited by the EFCC on allegations bothering on misappropriation of funds during his eight year tenure as governor. There is this school of thought that it’s a witch-hunt and that the Tiv people don’t want progress of their brothers. What do you have say about that?
How can anyone come to Benue and embezzle so much money, including even what they don’t have, you embezzle it and you want us to keep quiet? Then someone sits somewhere and talks about the Tiv man, every Tiv man is a poor person. I don’t think so. As far as I am concerned, nobody is witch hunting Suswam. The people of Benue, particularly the Tiv people want to know what happened to the state’s share of the Benue Cement shares. We learnt it has been sold. Where is the money? We want to know what happened to the state’s share in Julius Berger. We heard it has been sold. Where is the money? We want to know what happened to the N500 million flood money that the federal government gave to Benue. Where is the SURE-P money? It might not necessarily be Suswam. Why are people so sentimental and heaping everything on Suswam?
But do you support that this ongoing probe be extended to Akume?
Did Ortom take over from Akume? Why should it be extended to Akume. Why didn’t Suswam who received a handover note from Akume probe him? Because he wanted to do what he did. Besides, how can you investigate somebody who puts you in office? Akume made Suswam governor and he never probed him (Akume). The same Akume made Ortom governor, how then can he probe Akume? He never took over from Akume, Ortom took over from the government of Suswam.
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