EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JIGAWA STATE GOVERNOR DR SULE LAMIDO. JOURNALIST :- WHAT WAS THE TRUTH ABOUT 486 NORTHERNERS RECENTLY ARRESTED IN ABIA STATE, AND HOW COULD THE ISSUE HAVE BEEN HANDLED TO AVOID THE BAD BLOOD THAT SHADOWED THE EPISODE ? SULE LAMIDO :- Remember three months earlier, there was an incident in Rivers State where three people were arrested. On my part, I was speaking with the NSA and he was briefing me and I was briefing him about what was happening. So it was followed through the normal channel which is devoid of any particular emotion or sentiment so that we do not aggravate the problem of these people by introducing politics. So it was resolved and they were released. People were saying they are Jigawa State indigenes, but there were people from Bauchi, Jigawa, Kano and Kaduna who were picked. So when some people were saying Jigawa, immediately I called the NSA. And from here, I called our National Assembly members, I said go to Abuja, you are members of the National Assembly, call your colleagues to look at the issue and from there go to see the Chief of Army Staff, because Hon. Shehu Adamu is the chairman, House Committee on Defence – go there and find out what is the problem because formerly we would have handled it politically but we wanted to take politics out of it. Peoples’ lives were involved and the issue of security too, Boko Haram, so if you handle such issue with emotion – if you introduce politics you may compound their problems. So they went there, they met the Chief of Army Staff, they discussed and he said ‘please give me some time. We are sorry.’ He said there was a report and that after screening them, they would be released and they were released. But people said I should go and speak and I said how do I as a governor of my people exploit their predicament for political gains? Who do I speak to, the Army or to the newspapers? I got some text messages from some people saying ‘sir, if you do so you would have some political advantage.’ People were saying so but I said ‘no’, it is utterly forbidden. How do I exploit this issue to gain political advantage out of something which is very serious? I can’t do that! The NSA and myself we have been talking, the rest of them that are still being held they would be screened further. There is a procedure that must be followed. And I said, today in this country the Minister of Defense is a Northerner, the NSA is a Northerner, the IG is a Northerner, the vice president is a Northerner; can we be more Northern than these people? And therefore, when the issue is about security, we are talking of processes, isn’t it? We must respect their offices and believe in their personal emotion and sentiments and that there is no way they will be there and see that Northerners are persecuted. They wouldn’t do it. So we said no, we should not make anything out of this issue, it is not political. I think as leaders we must be very careful, we shouldn’t try to exploit every situation for political gains and that is why we refused to get into political exploitation of the matter.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 22:15:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015