Hon. Simon Mwadkwon is the member representing Riyom/BarkinLadi Federal Constituency of Plateau State who escaped death recently during the mass burial of victims when attackers ambushed them at the event. The lawmaker describes the partial state of emergency imposed on parts of Plateau State as worsening the security situation. He spoke with RUTH CHOJI, on this and other topical issues.
Has the partial state of emergency imposed on your constituency stopped the killings and violence?
Talking of state of emergency, by the concept itself, it means that Mr. President as empowered by the constitution can declare state of emergency. It is supposed to mean that Mr. President can use emergency powers in all ramifications to make sure that the problem is brought under control.
He should use the police, military and para-military and all the resources at his disposal, without following due process of the law, to ensure that he solves the problem. That is what my own understanding of state of emergency means.
Has it solved the problems of your constituency?
The problem has not been solved at all. If anything, killings have continued unabated in my constituency. You will be shocked to know that within the last one month, everyday, there are killings in the constituency, so far now…
Let me cut you there, is this killing peculiar to just your constituency or it is taking place in the whole of Plateau State?
You find the silent killings in Jos North; in Jos South it is less. But it is going on in my constituency of BarkinLadi and Riyom every day. People are attacked in their villages and the whole villages are attacked. Like in my village in Ta-hoss, four villages have been attacked this month with people killed and crops destroyed.
The immediate past councilor of ‘Show’ village was killed in his house. So the state of emergency has not yielded any result as far as I am concerned. If anything it is like it has increased the problems.
It has thrown the people of my constituency into mourning, economic hardship and deprivation. I don’t know if you are aware that the subvention under emergency has been seized by the federal government right from December to-date.
So even the civil servants have been deprived of their means of livelihood because they are working with the local government and now they have not been paid their salaries for four months.
You can imagine the hardship they are going through. So the emergency imposed on my local government and other two in Plateau has worsened the security situation.
What is the Joint Task force doing about this continuous violence?
I can’t really say what they are doing. I know that in my constituency, the JTF commander there, Commander Emmanuel has complained that he has shortage of men to send to the hinterland; so I can’t say what is really happening.
If you look at these things critically, I cannot really say what is happening. There are soldiers who are really determined and sincere that this thing should end. But there are also others who are not doing their best. In every twelve, there must be a Judas. There are bad eggs in every sector, so you find that a lot of compromise is going on.
For the three months when Major-General Olayinka Oshinowo was in Jos, before he was transferred, we witnessed relative peace in the whole of the four local governments that emergency rule was declared in.
But barely some few days after he was changed and General Ibrahim Muhammad came in, we could see, immediately there was a blast in the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) headquarters.
After that another one in St. Phimbas Catholic Church in Rayfield. After that, another bomb in Tudun Wada in Jos; even when they have banned the usage of motor cycle, the person that planted the bomb came on a motor cycle. So you begin to wonder, how did this motor cycle beat all the check points to come to Tudun Wada and place the bomb there?
Another shocking news is that, last week, there was a bomb found in ‘Hoss’, in their market. When the people saw it, they raised an alarm and one of the boys out of annoyance destroyed the clock attached to the bomb.
Before you know it, the story has changed that it was the boy that planted the bomb which is not true. I cannot write off the security agencies, but I want to assure you that, there are bad eggs among them. You remember that even Mr. President said that, there are Boko Haram members in the executive, legislature and even the judiciary.
So the military cannot claim to be angels. There is a need for self-assessment. If you are the one that met a peaceful situation on ground and within the shortest possible time when somebody came in and you see very ugly situation, where people are killed day in, day out, nobody needs to tell you that you are not performing.
There have been suggestions that local councils and state joint account be scrapped. Would you support that as a former local government chairman?
I can say yes and I can say no. In some cases there are some local government chairmen that if you sent allocation directly from the federal government, I want to assure you that those monies will go straight to someone’s pocket.
They need a supervisory body to make sure that those monies are properly utilised. Go to Plateau State, you will be shocked to see the level of development. This was made possible due to the prudence of Gov. Jang.
You know all the excess crude money that came before the local government chairmen came on board was saved and these monies were released in segments for them. The supervisory body which was the ministry for local government affairs was always going round to make sure that the monies were fully utilised.
There are states that don’t do what the governor of Plateau State did; they will even corner the subvention of local government. They just give them salaries and you will see little or no development in the local government.
It means if it will be given directly to the local government, then there should be some amendment so that funds will be adequately utilised. It is a constitutional matter and every sector of government will want to be independent.
Are you worried with the spate of insecurity in the north and do you think government is capable of solving this issue with the Boko Haram?
Yes, I am worried by the spate of insecurity and government can solve this problem of Boko Haram. Let me tell you why I said government can do it. It is not that they can’t solve the problems of Boko Haram. The real leaders of Boko Haram are not the ones that come out and speak.
The real leaders are the leaders that we know who occupy positions in this country but they will just use one miscreant and say that, he is the leader of Boko Haram. I don’t believe in dialogue with Boko Haram because tomorrow I can wake up and kill people too and expect government to dialogue with me. What are you dialoguing?
Some people have attributed the violence to poverty and illiteracy, do you share that view?
I heard what the American Secretary on Africa, Carson said. He made the illusion and also alluded it to the imbalance in the revenue sharing formula. You know the south-south receives 13% derivation.
Carson will want us to believe that the imbalance is the cause of these problems in the north; I don’t think it is true. It is absolutely not true. Because if you look at the people doing these killings, they are not poor people. The leader of Boko Haram is not a poor man; he is a very rich person.
The federal government recently commissioned a school for the Almajiris in Sokoto. How can you do that? What about children of Christians? Should the Christian send their children to become Almajiris too? It is only a lawless, hopeless father that will give birth to a child and expect someone to take care of him.
The concept of Almajiri has been abused because by right, it is believed that, you will send your child outside your environment to learn Koran. That does not mean that you will abandon that child to the Mallam. You are supposed to be responsible to that child because you are the father of that child.
It is only an irresponsible father that will give birth to a child and throw him away. What if every part in Nigeria decides to do the same? Because this money being spent is not Sokoto’s money. It is Nigeria’s money and everybody is entitled to this money and this treatment.
I don’t see this as growth and development because it will encourage this kind of situation where people will give birth to twenty, fifty children when they know they cannot train even one.
Northern governors have been agitating for a review of the? revenue sharing formula, would you subscribe to it?
I am from the middle belt. It is only in Nigeria that I see people will go to the centre every month to share money. The truth is that everybody is supposed to make do with what he or she can harness from their own state. We are states that make up a federation. So every state is supposed to fend for itself.
But if we now see that there are states that have no mineral deposit to cater for themselves and we want to share from everything that is produced in Nigeria; then we must do it with a caution because a day will come, the South-South will be pushed to the wall and they will say no. What indices are they using to agitate for increase? Plateau State can feed Nigeria if it will be empowered.
Coming back to the committee on education which you are a member of -are you worried about our state of education?
The educational sector is becoming worrisome. There is a need to salvage it. The only way Nigeria can develop fully is to have a sound educational system that cannot be disrupted. I have been in the academic sector for fifteen years, I know that the problem with our universities is funding. I know quite a number of other issues bedeviling our universities.
One, there are no laboratories; yet you want to graduate a medical doctor. Even language labs; the different labs are not there.
You don’t have a well-furnished library where research can be conducted, accommodation for students and lecturers are not there.
There are no incentives for lecturers and that is why we have brain drain. You can imagine a professor not earning up to a permanent secretary’s salary in a state ministry.
By the time you become a professor, it is like you have become a Field Marshall in the army. You have reached the height of your career; yet the professor cannot take care of his family and live comfortably. So what our educational system needs is funding.
The above interview was conducted shortly? before Hon. Mwadkwon’s recent close shave with death and before President Goodluck Jonathan lifted the state of emergency imposed on 15 LGAs, last week.