The security challenge in Nasarawa , his home state as well as the entire country forms part of the discourse MOSES JOHN had with Senator Solomon Ewuga representing Nasarawa North in the Senate. The lawmaker also speaks on his future political ambition among others
Reason for returning to PDP
I came back home to the party we formed in 1998. We were key players in the party in Nasarawa state.
At that time, the party was not disposed to seeking any electoral position even as a gladiator. And I
felt their conduct was difficult and against the PDP ethics of democracy and therefore left. I have always been a founding member of PDP.
Anything different now?
Politics is about interest and if my interest manifests in the present dispensation, what is wrong with that? I have worked according to the wave of interest I represent. I have a comity of interests and for whatever change that I have experienced; there have been a wave of change also. I am doing it with a corporate value of interest and that is why I am doing what I am doing.
Your chances in Nasarawa 2015 governorship
I want to be able to provide service at any particular area of dispensation I found myself. Being a governor is just one of the positions which orchestrate my interest politically. I started in 1982 in NPN. I contested state secretary, I didn’t get it but I ended being the publicity secretary in Plateau state, before the military took over. So, I had occupied one position or the other nationally, in one party or another. I was a national auditor of UNCP. I was the assistant national legal adviser of PDP, north central when it started. So I have been visible as a politician and my visibility has an interest that manifests in gladiatorial term in wanting to participate in politics and so if one does that, there must be a reason. It must also be understood that the supreme interest of providing services surpasses any short term value that may manifest in the course of this business. But you can see that at every turn, there is a change. I went to the people; I didn’t go as a person.
Alleged one term agreement of the incumbent governor
It is not for him(the governor) to deny it, and then to be fixed with concrete details of data produced on the newspapers sponsored by Ta’al organization, his own group. You don’t deny what you have done because of short term interest. You live by it and you request it to be considered even whether the dispensation allows it or not.
What new thing can a PDP-led administration offer the state?
Every re-election of a candidate is always faced with difficult problems. It is not only in Nigeria but all over the world. Once a person subjects himself for re-election, the difficulties are legendary. But it is how you manage it that determines your capacity to live through the grips of political expressions and oppositions manifesting in various forms. It is not because I will wish to contest for governorship or not, that will make the PDP lose in 2015. It is more of the capacity of PDP to position itself as a party ready to sustain power by all means. I was with CPC, I did not register in APC so I can’t talk about machinations. But if what you are concerned with is the scenario that is on ground, what I will tell you is that PDP is constant, APC is a fluidity in movement of that sort.
The cracks you have in PDP have not started in APC yet, when they start, you will see it. At least PDP at present is beginning to experience a game changer in the new chairman. It has not started at the other side yet. They are just manifesting as a potential force.
On Eggon crisis
You have forgotten that there have been similar crises in the southern part of the state. People were completely displaced. The destruction caused by those people is not but crisis caused by the governor. Secondly, it was developed from that branding, the criminalization process that puts all the people who are visible in their own community to see how they can use that at certain time to advance his political interest. Let it be noted that before the Justice Gbadeyan report came out, he had gone to meet our elders in the state to say he was going to sign a detention notice on me and the man told him he can’t do that. He is a senator of the Federal Republic. The processes are different. That was in August 2012. So he had had this fear but I could be his limiting factor in developing his re-election ambition.
So consistently, he had maintained that issue when he brought out that white paper, which was a third party action orientation.
These are the two issues; first that I am suspected to be a financier and abettor of Ombatse and that I should be investigated further towards prosecution. Secondly, I gave false testimony under oath. In each of these reports, it required actions before my criminalisation. So, the change you could see it’s said to embarrass me because if the intention was to push me towards prosecution, he could have done it right from the beginning, instead of wasting so much of tax payers’ money and ending up in a non-conclusive indictment. If you say I gave false testimony under oath, bring the truth. It has to be balanced against the background of the lies I have used under oath. You need to check their claim. You know what, that is not only his ambition. Our elders committee has gone to him to plead that his intention to go to Alakio should not happen because as a committee, we were meeting on the 9th of May; they went to Alakio on the 7th.
We said don’t do it that we are almost curing any malady arising from the problems you think are around, but look at the disaster that came out of it. Twelve trucks went for God sake, for one old man. It’s bad and we feel very sad. It was less than 200 people that lived in that community.
How I knew was when I went there, they carried 12 police vehicles I still don’t understand why. I feel very sad for the state of difficulties we have gone through. I feel very sad too that we are being demonized but where the governor has insisted on a scenario that he is the security officer of the state, it is his business to calm the crisis but if he doesn’t, what else can we do than to wait and see what direction he intends to take.
I think things are getting out of control across the state. That is the difficulty I am not able to understand. Let him do what is right. He knows in clear perspective how he wants to handle the situation. This thing I’m telling you, there is nothing new about it. When you go to him, instead of addressing the issues, he will give you the heartbreaks. I’m in court to challenge the import of the matter.
Ended now
Has politics not come into play on the missing Chibok girls?
The local politics in the North-East should not undermine our reasoning as countrymen. Some people are using the political turbulence because of their limited understanding of politics. It brings a lot of shame to this country. It’s a shameful thing that school girls will be adopted.
I feel very disturbed when I travel, it’s disinteresting, it is terrible. The responsibility lies on all Nigerians. No matter the grievances, we must resolve it because no war has brought peace. It is only peace that brings progress. It must also be noted that from Nasarawa state to Borno, there is Ashaka in Gombe, that’s all. You see a large number of these young men who are trained depending on government for an opportunity for jobs, so most of them are just roaming the streets and are ready for indoctrination into what some don’t even know. Some of the boys don’t even know when they are being recruited; they are only offered money, which is how hopeless life is.
Eggon’s allegation of marginalization at confab
What do you want me to say? Finally, one person is there at last. Tony Akika, a well competent lawyer is there under a special dispensation.
What do you think will come out of the national confab?
It is not whether there is a solution or not, in a history of a country whatever you spent toward creating a harmony of disposition, whatever you can spend getting everybody to talk about themselves and look at each other and ask how have we been relating, whatever you can do to see that people question understanding of each other’s harmonize it in a shape that will lead to progress is desirable. Whatever they achieve is for the posterity to judge.
What if confab recommends extension of president’s tenure?
I am a legislator and there is a constitution guiding me. Whatever they are going to do must have a constitutional backing so it is not what they say but the value added to the situation they create that you must appreciate and that means the volume of goodness. There is nothing wrong with that. The president has used his own discretion to create a process of allowing Nigerians to come together in a situation of managing themselves through dialogue; there is nothing wrong with that. It still has to come to the National Assembly. So as a legislator, I don’t have to go into confrontation with them.
Subjecting confab’s outcome to referendum
I will be guided by the constitutional process that allows me to contribute to the issue. I am not going to work with suggestion.
There are insinuations that if the National Assembly was up to their task, there won’t be need for national confab?
What you are saying is that your senators don’t know what they are doing that is why the confab is set up. The confab is not an elected body, but selected by a process which eventually brought them there so nobody can use that to indict the National Assembly. Indicting all the House members and Senators on the confab is a journey to nowhere. So they are two different things. Let us not suggest that what they are doing is struggling with the responsibility of the National Assembly. What they are doing can only complement the spirit of national orientation and not otherwise because we were elected.
