Senator Joseph Waku has blamed Senate President David Mark for the alleged marginalisation of the Tiv nation by the President Jonathan administration, calling the senator a tribalist,.
Speaking in an interview with our correspondent in the State of Maryland,USA, where he recently attended the annual convention of the Mutual Union of the Tiv in the United States (MUTA), the former senator descibed Mark as a very wicked person who did not hide his hatred for the Tiv people.
Waku further that he had told Mark several times that he was a tribalist who could go to any extent to see that the Tiv area was not developed.
Saying that he did not know what the Tiv people had done against him that made him not to support their progress, the former senator berated Mark for allocating just three federal appointments to the region out of the 13 slots that Benue State got from the federal government.
“David gave 10 out of the 13 federal appointments to Idoma, which is a micro-minute community, and gave just three to the Tiv people which is even the largest zone in the state.”
Senator Waku also told our correspondent that he was ready to embrace the state governor, Dr. Gabriel Suswam as long as there was a common agreement to protect the interest of the people of Benue State.
“I have no personal problem with him. We are all working for the growth of the people of Benue State.
The governor is not my enemy and I am in talking terms with him. We only diasgree politically,” he added.
In an earlier summit which was a side event of the MUTA convention, Waku warned the association not to collectively take side in the ongoing political tussle in
Benue State, saying that they should play the roles of a moderator which they are.
Senator Waku further said that taking side as a body would reduce the integrity of the association, saying that: “You are not supposed to be partisan.This is not a political organisation.
An individual within the association can go and become a politician”
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