Gabriel Suswam, the Governor of Benue State, laments on how the North as a region is losing out in its economic activities due to the security challenges across the country. In this interview with ISAIAH BENJAMIN, he reiterates the commitment of the Governors of the Northern States to be more proactive in handling security issues.
What have you been doing to address the security challenges arising from the frequent clashes between farmers and Fulani herdsmen in Benue state?
We have done quite a lot in that regard in addressing the security situation arising from the clashes between the Fulanis and the farmers. The governor of Nasarawa state and I set up a committee that has made far reaching recommendations. We have not been able to take the report yet, but we are hoping to take it this month.
In addition to that, we have set up another committee along the border communities. The committee is made up of the traditional rulers in Nasarawa state and the chairman of council with the traditional rulers in Benue state, and those that are along the borders.
The governor of Nasarawa state on his own also set up a committee within communities in Nasarawa state. I also have another committee between the Fulani leadership in Benue and some of the community leaders in the state. You will observe that there are less of the clashes in the last one month or so. But there is an angle to it that is very disturbing. It is no longer an issue of Fulanis clashing, but there is an element of criminality introduced to it.
You have some criminals who will go and get the Fulani cows and rustle them and then the Fulanis don’t know the difference between the farmer who is working peacefully on his farm and the criminals who might not even be Tiv. Except for the criminal dimension to it, otherwise, we have substantially addressed the problem and I believe that we would be able to put that to rest.
I have also invited the Sultan of Sokoto and he has graciously agreed to come to Benue to perform a function and also for us to sit down with the Fulanis since he is the leader of the Muslims for us to further address it. So, we have gone very far in tackling the problem.
The governor of Nasarawa would be with me in Benue for us to hold the discussions with the Sultan and the leadership. They will listen to him, I have done that before. We have done quite a lot between me and Nasarawa state governor in addressing this problem.
What are your key achievements in the past one year as governors across the country mark their first year in office?
Just a month ago, the President was in Benue and he went to the length and breadth of the state, commissioning presidential projects. You know a lot of people invite the President to come and commission 4 bedroom flats and things like that. But we commissioned presidential projects in Benue state. There is quite a lot that has been done in many areas.
When you talk of transformation, there is quite a lot that we have achieved in Benue state. We have achieved a lot in the areas of education, health, agriculture and infrastructural development etc. We have impacted positively in the whole facet of Benue society.
We have impacted positively on the Benue people. I don’t think I can enumerate all the things we have done here because quite a lot has been done.
Some people have described the meeting of the governors as a forum for just drinking tea. This is because in spite of your frequent meetings you have been holding, the bombings and killings in the north have continued unabated. What is your reaction to this?
At all times, it is better to be talking even if you are not discussing serious issues. When you interact among yourselves, you bring down tension. Even when they described it as a meeting where we take tea and exchange banters, that alone gives some sense of unity and followership. But beyond that, people who don’t want anything good for this country criticise every good intention.
We meet as Northern governors and address serious issues. Maybe if we were not talking, the situation would have been worse than what we have now! We take decisions and we make sure that at the individual level, which is at the state level, we follow up.
At the meeting of today (May 17th 2012), we seriously discussed the security challenges in the north and we took very far reaching decisions to address it.
But you will agree with me that what is happening now is an emerging phenomenon in the North. It is totally unknown to us. In those days if you want to go to a peaceful region, it was the north, even if you want to get honest people in the office, it was in the north. I don’t think that is the same situation now.
We must look at where we have gone wrong, why we have moved from one extreme to another extreme. It is very strange to see that people are bombing in the north; it is strange that we now have armed robbery and criminality in the north. You know all these things were things that were totally unheard of in the north.
It is entirely a new phenomenon and we are all learning how we can tackle it. You know, when you are in your house, you don’t expect that you will sleep and there would be flood. You will have to learn how to get round it.
These things have happened so fast. All of these have happened within the last six months. Every person, whether you are at the level of leadership or at the level of followership, this is taking us by surprise.
Every day, we try to find a solution to it. If it is a situation where you have a defined leadership from the people causing this problem and you can sit at a round table and discuss with them, then it is understandable. But in this case, these people are not known, they are not articulating any demand, so it is something that is totally different.
If you look at terrorists from across the world, especially in places like Afghanistan, they articulate what their issues are. But these people are not saying anything and that presents a very difficult situation for the leadership, so it is not just about leadership.
We are doing our best at our own level, but we can’t even see the people who are doing this, they are not ready to come to the table for discussion, so what do you do? We have to go into intelligent gathering and in intelligent gathering; it is the people that provide the necessary information to security agents.
So, the people must assist in intelligence gathering because these people are not spirits, they live in homes, they live in the community. They do their trainings in homes. We need to have information at the level of leadership, otherwise, the north as it were, is being decapitated economically and so there is nothing that we as leaders alone can do except to collaborate.
We are calling on all Northerners to support us by providing information because if you look at our situation, Kano is gone, Kaduna is gone, Jos is gone. These are the three most vibrant cities in the entire north. All of them are gone! Nobody wants to live in Kaduna; nobody wants to go to Kano and trade, who will go on holiday in Jos? Nobody! Europeans from across the world used to come to Jos for holidays. Go to Jos now, if you see a white man there, maybe he is an albino.
So, we have a very serious situation that affects us all. It is not about leadership, so let’s not be pushing it on leadership. Yes, leadership has a large chunk of the responsibilities, but we need to come together and see it as our collective problem and not a leadership problem.
As it is affecting the north, it is affecting the country by extension because you will travel outside; people who will want to come here and invest. As far as they are concerned, Nigeria is one. As far as they are concerned, there is bombing, there is terrorism here. Nobody is coming here, so we need to address it as our problem.
The security agents have been doing a lot. I know what they have been doing that is why I can commend confidently on this. Like I said, this is an emerging phenomenon that nobody anticipated. Nigeria has been a very peaceful country; nobody anticipated that we will have suicide bombers in this country.
It was something that we use to read in the newspapers and watch on Television and we will say that this can never happen here. So, our security agents were caught unaware and they have to find ways of confronting the problem.
You have just constituted caretaker committees for local governments in Benue state. Of course Benue is not the only state; almost all the states of the federation have not conducted local government elections. This is why many people are accusing some of you for not allowing the democratic process at the grassroots to prevail. What is your reaction to this?
I will only comment on Benue state because there are peculiar circumstances which, at times, make it impossible to conduct local government elections.
Let me give you an example, I finished my election and then the tenure of the local government finished at about the time that we were holding the election. There was no way we could hold both local government elections and the main election which was the governorship, National Assembly and Presidential elections.
So, we put in a caretaker committee. After the elections, I have not settled down because up till now, as I am talking to you, I am in court. So, I have a situation where I finish from one court to the other. I have finished from all the courts and I am now in the Supreme Court. Under such circumstances, it becomes difficult for you to settle down and say you are conducting local government elections.
But I have fixed the conduct of local government election in Benue state between September and October this year. The different states have different reasons for not conducting elections at the local government level, but in Benue state, this is our reason. For one year, we have been running in court because some people feel that it should be them.
It is not just about governors trying to be funny in conducting local government elections, there are reasons for it. We are no longer appointing sole administrators; we appoint caretakers which gives some semblance of democracy.
What I did was to ask the people to go to their various local governments and nominate people that they feel can represent them to constitute a 7 man committee in each local government while we are trying to sort out the political issues that hinder us from the conduct of the elections.