Unongo: We are Committed to Voting a Northern Aspirant in 2015 Second Republic Minister of Mines and Steel, Wantaregh Paul Unongo, has joined those who believe the presidency should return to the North. He argues that the entire northern population constitutes two thirds of the country adding that the zone would religiously ensure that only northern candidates are enthroned come 2015, in this Interview with Henry Iyorkase. Excerpts: From among the young men that surround you, do you find any who can be your successor? They are more than 20, but I believe in collective leadership. There are some if you allow them they would give you good leadership. Suswam is somebody that is a potential leader but he didn’t have the concept of it. I didn’t know. It was the people who loved him like Professor Torkuma Steve Ugbah, George Akume Dajo, and Joe Ikyaagba who brought Suswam to me. They started fighting among themselves saying ‘this one is a small boy, don’t stand election against him, we will convince him he will do well’. I asked them what his philosophy was. I didn’t know him but I liked his face. He looks so friendly, so innocent and he looks like my son, and I discovered that my son, Steve Torkuma Ugba, is related to him. George Akume knelt down in my house in Makurdi pleading for Suswam. I said if this boy is so good, well, let’s give him a chance. I am not after him, I have never seen a young man so wonderful. He is an incredible phenomenon. I didn’t know what’s at stake. I don’t know why Suswam will feel a person like me was trying to fight him. I have evidence to show that I worked for his progress and three times I was critical to his winning elections. Some people have tried but others are alive and I am very fond of calling names. I will call the names of those people who will say exactly what I did and what happened. If I were Suswam, a person who has done that to me, I will show deference to him. I will consult him. When he disagrees with me, I will try to understand why he has done that and that is why I have come to the sad conclusion that Akume is indeed a greater person than Suswam because he has more humility and that is why he did not only lie down begging me to work for Suswam. He said “orvesen” (elder), I did this but I was wrong, that human beings can expect from one another. But I have never heard that from Suswam. He is so powerful, so great, he must always win and be at the top. God didn’t create the world like that. How can you be greater than everybody including God? I have refused to criticise him politically. I have decided to study his character. I went to school to study human beings, in my Psychology I didn’t study cockroach, animals. I studied deviant behaviour and I am thorough. I am sad. They hate me for saying I am sad; they have banished me. I am 77, and would be 78 by September yet the man who is not even as old as my first son has banished me from being an old man in my village. That is what is happening here and you expect me to keep quiet. Why is it not sensible for Terkura or Suswam to say I am not an old man in PDP? I am not in the elders committee in Benue, Kwande or Turan. But he cannot take away my age. In view of all you have said, where does the problem lie, the constitution or our leaders? The problem lies with the impunity of our leaders. Nigerian leaders have no regard, they do things with impunity and contempt for people that nobody will dare speak. You don’t speak so it will continue and when people don’t like it, you will stand up and say no. The majority of people in Nigeria are not rich, we are communalistic people; we like one another. Why are Nigerian young people of today not prepared to suffer again? So you are responsible for this rubbish system in governance. It has nothing to do with the constitution; how many constitution has Britain written? They don’t have even one but their system works. It is people who make their system work. Leaders who would have carried people along have allowed them to abuse the system. People are going to suffer in this country and, I predict, until when the suffering is so much then, that is you will have a revolution. People deceive themselves that this will continue for life, it’s a lie. This arbitrary system of governance that has no regard for human beings, this wicked system that accumulates till there is no limit to accumulation, shall pass away. Do you subscribe to the way democracy is being practised with regard to the last local government election in #Benue State? What kind of democracy is this where you force people on people? They understand , they carried this disagreement to the Northern Governors’ Forum and started telling stories. This is why the people who were from #ACN in Benue are suffering. This is why some of us who sat in the sun for the local government elections never saw a ballot box or an electoral officer and they came and told us ‘sorry it is now one o’clock and the elections are over’. I am an old man and I became confused because even if I fell asleep and they came and did elections and called results and they feel happy, how can you say you like Benue? Would you like democracy when you know that there was no election in your place and they just call your name and say you go there and call yourself chairman? I hear they told them for the next six months you will not use money, pack it and give to somebody else so after six months you will collect your own. It has done nothing but it has made us ridiculous before the international community. I challenge the press for condoning this type of thing. We people stood up and went to jail. The white man punished us; the soldiers punished us because we fought so that you (our children) can inherit good governance. As the mouthpiece of the #Northern Elders’ Forum, what is your position on the rotation of the presidency with regard to 2015? No! No! There is no rotation. Mr. President, Goodluck Jonathan, has killed the rotation principle. He believes that any #Nigerian who is good should stand elections and if all Nigerians in the majority vote for him, he should come in. So, we (northerners) are going to work very hard since we believe in it as an article of faith that the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must come from the North, not because we possess the best people but because of the experience we have gone through, because of politics and our love for Nigeria. This we have made for the sustenance, stability, sovereignty and oneness of Nigeria. We believe that the old arrangement was made that after a certain period, the North will present the next president. We say President Jonathan has killed it. We hope we will use our vote and win the presidency against anybody including Jonathan. When we do that, we will thank Jonathan that this is the only good thing he would have done because democracy is a game of numbers. We believe that in a fair election, where the North decides to work in the majority in one line, our votes will be more. So we have no doubt that when we convince the people, the uninformed people, the illiterates that abused me in the press that I am not a northerner, are sick. The concept of northerner was designed by the British when they granted governments. I come from the regional government they call northern Nigeria. All the people from Kogi, Kwara, Benue, up to two thirds of the land mass of Nigeria is called northern region. The lazy people feel they have found oil in large commercial quantities in Nigeria. It borders northern Nigeria and they believe that when this oil that is flowing, come to the boundary of Nigeria, they all say this is the boundary of Nigeria, no more. All the oil that is flowing through Chad, the people of China are extracting that oil in large commercial qualities when it flows to Lake Chad and reaches Nigeria’s border, the people believe there is no more oil in Nigeria. I pity them. There is oil in my district here. There is so much gas under the thing called Benue. Even if we have it, we are not going to be so funny like the Edwin Clarks and the young men who are threatening war. We will use our votes in another election. I didn’t say we will use our votes to vote in a Christian, a Buddhist or a Muslim. We don’t care; the next president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must be somebody from the North. That is our commitment and we will deliver on that commitment and we have antecedents that that can be done. When we deliver on that, we hold on the principle that the best candidate is the one who has the greatest number of votes cast. So in the next five elections, we will be putting in northern candidates. If we feel that the South has fielded a candidate that will be sympathetic towards the North, that will not treat the North like Obasanjo and the rest of them, the Jonathan who has no respect for Tiv people, we will vote for that southern candidate but it will be our decision in the North. I will work for the solidity of northern votes because we know what has happened to us. I disagree with #Goodluck Jonathan that Tiv people are not important, they may or may not be in his cabinet as ministers and he doesn’t care. He is absolutely wrong. I voted for him then, I will not vote for him now. I will vote for a person who will at least give a Tiv person a cabinet minister. I will vote for a person who knows the history of the Nigerian Army. That in the war of 1939, 35 Tiv people represented Nigeria credibly. Even peace keeping in Congo, Tiv people died and finally, the Nigerian civil war, the people who died in the majority in liberating Jonathan’s place in Niger Delta were Tiv, commanded by a Tiv Lieutenant Colonel Shade. I will vote for anybody who respects Tiv and anybody who despises Tiv like Jonathan I will tell the Tiv people not to vote for him. I believe they will listen to me more than they will to Suswam. The 2015 gubernatorial race is fast approaching; various groups and sections of the state are agitating, the MINDA particularly seems to be making a very strong case that it is their turn, what is your position on this? I am not a joker, I am an experienced politician and an experienced Tiv man, I am a traditional person, there is nothing like MINDA. MINDA is a development association comprising one half of the family of Ichongo. The Tiv are made up of two houses: Ichongo, and Ipusu. If they make the case that since they founded this system of government, that is ‘chop chop’, it has always been an Ipusu person that has been governor and that from this house of Ichongo not a single person has been governor, it will be a strong case. Because of the orientation of the Tiv people who come from the Hebrew, our stone is from Israel, we believe in fairness – Ya-na-wangbian(chop and give your brother). The reverse principle, “yangbian-ya-chicha”(chop and keep everything to self) will destroy the fabrics of society. What has happened in Benue State, if it is a military governor as recommended by Paul Unongo as I can name the one I recommended, is Ipusu. Let’s come to politics; all four are Ipusu people and that’s not tradition. You cannot have stability. The Tiv people have a a system where we practise polygamy and we send the women from the same mother in marriage to collect money to pay upon new wives that we found. It is an abomination. That in your family of four people, how can you this modern Tiv people, you this Ipusu people, you who are the younger for the eldest son of Tiv is Ichongo, you don’t ask why your land is so bad, it is because you have violated the land. It is time for the Ipusu people themselves to say we want somebody from Ichongo to be governor. The same argument, if you want to stretch it, you can say the same thing for those of us in zone A for the Senate seat. If you talk about the administrative organisation of Kwande, Jerchira and Sankera, the three groups that produce the senator, somehow they will choose a senator from Sankera and then play football, jump Kwande and go and take a senator from Jerchira and when Jerchira people finish, they play the ball to Sankera. If a mistake occurs that somebody from Kwande gets it by accident, it will be Ipusu person. Unfortunately, even the Senate seat for Zone A by Tiv tradition belongs to Kwande but first Ichongo. Don’t you think that with dialogue such issues can be resolved? The only dialogue that can take place is for the brothers to sit and think if there is somebody so good from Ipusu and there is nobody from Ichongo that is good, the Ipusu people will come and say please “gba nen se injo” (lend to us); that is the tradition. The Ichongo people will sit and say since you are honest, let us say this is the last time but you will sit and take care of our anxieties. Look at how they treated us and we are the eldest, so you go but know that it doesn’t belong to you. What they are thinking is nonsense, there is noting like MINDA. Abu Shuluwa told you we have a TUDA. TUDA wants governor too. TUDA means the remaining three children of Ichongo- Turan who is the first born of Tiv and the first born of Ichongo, Ikyurav and Ugondo Development Association. So if you have friends among these funny people who call themselves MINDA, they should speak Kwande if they are in Kwande and speak Ichongo. If they are in the total mega thing called Tivland, they should speak Ichongo and plead the course of Ichongo. If there is anybody from Ipusu who thinks he has a case to make with his friends and brothers from Ichongo, let him be free to come forward, we will take your money and cows. Tell us the truth, why should we support you? We will also table our need and ask can you deliver? If you say you can deliver, we turn over and ask our Ichongo people; do you want this person to go? Otherwise, there is no room in the Tiv tradition for any Ipusu man to be governor. It must be an Ichongo man and I have already stated that publicly and I told Abu. He was trying to say but was afraid because he is playing politics in a church where they sent people to go and beat up a reverend father. And people who think they are playing politics, Suswam said Steven should not go to church, Akume should not go to church and they invited people to beat up the Rev. Father, hit the knife on his head, took up the holy communion; it’s abomination. And I said I am Ikyurav and a Turan man and my elders selected me to speak on behalf of Jato-Aka and I made a categorical statement that I don’t see anybody asking us for Injo (credit). No credit for Ichongo people, no credit for Senate. Suswam cannot again be a senator in Zone ‘A’, he is an Ipusu person and if he comes to kill us I will say no, that’s my first answer. The second answer as a politician, I am going to be active because I have stopped being angry with #Tiv people. I will tell them to have political considerations. The people of Benue have a case that has not been determined in court. A young Ichongo man won election, and because Ipusu are so strong, powerful and have so much money, they seized it and Ichongo people collaborated but this man decided to persist, he is still in court. I will tell you as an old politician, don’t discuss, my sons Torwua and Torkuma have not been able to resolve their differences. I am too old to be afraid of saying that. When I say these things, they abuse me, I pity them. Those who don’t want to hear the truth will suffer more. It is the same thing when people ask me about #Suswam going to be a senator; I said this, is he going to contest? The reason is that the determination of that case will determine whether he will contest or not. I am too intelligent to indulge in this puerile issue. fb/benuenewsonline #BNO
Posted on: Mon, 19 Aug 2013 05:27:13 +0000
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