By Gbenga Oke
Alhaji Yahaya Kwande is a diplomat and administrator. He was Nigeria’s ambassador to Switzerland between1981-1984 and a close associate of former vice-president and Northern Political Leaders Forum, NPLF consensus northern presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

In this interview with Vanguard, he spoke extensively on the Jos crises and why the crises linger in the state. He also decried the inability of the government to implement various reports from panels set up by the government in the past. The politician criticised the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for being naïve over the zoning arrangement of the party. Excerpts:

The Jos, Plateau crises have lways been a recurring event and igerians are beginning to wonder why. As a stakeholder and an elder statesman from Plateau State, what is your take on the latest crises that broke out in the state?

Let me tell you, I am just sitting down here and don’t really know what is happening. The question we have to ask ourselves is who is fighting who and what are these people fighting for? You cannot do something without a reason; there must a reason behind it. Do you kill somebody to eat the meat or do you kill somebody just to take the property away?

This is what armed robbers are doing but in our own case, I really don’t understand and I am yet to understand who is fighting who and for what reason. That is the question we have to find answers to because this thing has been going on and on and we keep talking and talking about the panels that had been set up in the past.

A panel was set up by the National Assembly in the past, a panel was also set up by Governor Jonah Jang, a panel was also set up by President Goodluck Jonathan which I was a member. The question to further ask is where are these reports? Why are they afraid of making the reports open? Why are they afraid of taking decisions on the report so t
hat we can have a lasting peace on the Plateau.

Are you saying the release and implementation of the various panels’ reports will guarantee peace in Plateau State?

Believe me, it will bring peace if justice is done. There is something we call ‘Adachi’ in Islam and it means punishing the wrong and supporting the right and not minding who you are passing judgment on. The wrong must be punished and the right must be praised. So, what is it that is wrong that people cannot take decision on?

They are afraid? They set up a committee and when the reports are handed over to them, that is the end of it and it appears as if the accusation is centered towards government. Why can’t you solve the problem about this indigeneship, the indigeneship problem is not in Jos Plateau alone, it is across the country and in the constitution.

The Federal Government has talked about amending the constitution but they don’t seem to be talking about the reports that are causing a lot of trouble and havoc in the Jos and other places. I believe the report should be made effective, it should be explained to the people; that is one thing that is giving us a lot of trouble in Jos.

Secondly, if people deserve certain things, give it to them and if they don’t deserve it, deny them and the government must be the father to all communities, the leadership no matter how bad it may be. But in our own case, all these reports even long before Jonah Jang came to power, reports by the military, where are they and why does the leadership deceive ordinary men?

The only thing we hear is that the police will come up with the statement, we will go into it and the perpetrators will be brought to book, then we will wait for another one to happen and we hear the same statement. When are they going to bring these people to book? How big is Jos that somebody killed 10 people and you cannot find him? How many are we in Jos and why Jos? Somebody killing a human being daily, 10 people, 20 people, there are villages that have now been wiped out entirely and nobody is talking.

Do you suspect any insincerity on the part of the government over the delay in releasing these reports?

Well, this is based on individual observation but what I am saying is that a panel has been set up, we were told in our panel that the report should be finished in two weeks and the members are all indigenes, leaders of Plateau State and I was one of them. We were appointed on religious basis to enable people know there is fairness in the panel constituted. The leadership of the panel consists of Christians and Muslims.

This was to make people accept our report but irrespective of that, we took eight months to go into the issues one after the other and at the end, we made a recommendation. Where are this recommendations and who is keeping the report? Why are they afraid to implement these reports? The bias is in the leadership not in any man in the state. They have confidence in the government and they are waiting for the result and once it is announced, the problem will be over. Then ordinary people in the state were waiting one month, two months, three months for the report to be released but nothing was released. So people have lost confidence again in the leadership.

What are the recommendations made by your committee to put an end to the lingering Jos crises?

I won’t tell you the recommendations we made because it was the president who appointed us and we went into the matter and made recommendations and handed the reports to him. It will be very unfair on me to announce the recommendations, it is his property and no more my property.

You and some other Northern PDP members instituted a Court action to stop President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting the PDP primaries on January 13. But as it presently stands, the 2010 Electoral Act amended by the National Assembly does not give room to courts to entertain some of the issues that you raised at the court. What is your reaction to that?

This question of zoning was not meant to be a national issue as such. The question of zoning was a prerogative of the ruling party called the Peoples Democratic Party and it has good intention for people of Nigeria particularly we the minority. Because if zoning was not created by the party, then rotation of position will remain for only the big tribes in Nigeria and the PDP leadership made zoning possible so that the minority will one day rule this country.
So it has been signed, it has been accepted. The issue of Jonathan now contesting in 2011 is the problem, that is the area of contention because he is not a Northerner and Northern part where the presidency is zoned to is supposed to finish their term and Jonathan insists on contesting, that is what is bringing the problem.

The man is using his incumbency to perpetuate his ambition. If it was an ordinary Southerner that is contesting and not minding the zoning system, it would have been different but the man we are facing is the man that have got sticks i
n his hands and waving it all over and that is why the question of zoning has become so important. Believe me, the man is sitting on a keg of gun powder and using his own power to say, ‘ I know but I want to do it.’

And the leadership of the PDP is naïve in their decision. They say we will maintain and sustain zoning and sharing of power within the PDP and they went straight away to say that President Jonathan can contest. Can you imagine that? They did not even describe what the zoning system is. Zoning system was sharing of power between the South and the North. You say you can retain it and sustain it and shortly, you jump and said a Southerner can contest. Does it make sense?

Of course people want to deceive Nigerians by saying President Jonathan is a Nigerian and he can contest by the Nigerian constitution. Who told them that he cannot contest? But he cannot contest on the platform of the PDP. He can contest on the platform of other political parties which is numbering about 62, he can move to another one and contest.

As popular as he feels he is, he may win. What we are saying is that he cannot contest on the platform of the PDP unless there is a resolution in the party convention that zoning has been scuttled and anybody can now contest. If they do that, believe me sincerely, those that they think they are stopping will be the future beneficiary because the majority will always be forever in Nigeria, we are not in that position yet.

Do  not forget, when Kennedy was president of the United States of America, the first appointment he made was that of his brother as the Attorney General, they are of the same father and mother, nobody queried him, they just talk about the qualification, they talk about the education, but are we are not  yet in that position in Nigeria. So let us move a little bit forward and then see when we will reach that position of a constitution that anybody whether of the same father and mother, can be president and the other can be vice-president, we have not reached that position yet.

How do you view statements that zoning could entrench the North/South dichotomy?

Well, President Jonathan is a very nice, calm gentlemen and if you go down memory lane, you will find that the Niger Deltans are friends of the North. We have always been together and we have the same visions of freedom and democracy for the minority. The problem is not Jonathan, the problem is the principle involved. An agreement has been made and signed and unfortunately for President Jonathan, he was a signatory to this agreement when his principal was away. He acted on his behalf and attended that meeting and signed that document.

For people to now turn round and say that there wasn’t and agreement, that is why Northerners are not happy and it means they are taking us for a ride. People have been saying President Jonathan is a Nigerian, we are not saying Jonathan cannot contest because constitutionally, he has the right to do so.

What we are saying is that he can pick one out of over 60 political parties in Nigeria to contest and not under the PDP platform because there was an agreement on rotation and power sharing within the South and the North to give component parts of Nigeria opportunity to rule this country. That is all. He can move out and win election if he thinks he is so popular and so qualified. As it stands, we are not talking about Jonathan as a person, we are talking about members of the PDP in the South have no right of contesting this election in 2011, every Southerner within the PDP should be bound by the rules based on a signed agreement.

Looking back to 2003 when ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was going for a second term in office, there were some Northern candidates that contested against him within the PDP despite that the presidency was zoned to the South. Is the same not playing out in this whole sage now?

I will say that you cannot stop an individual strong-headed person for refusing to abide by the law. Haven’t you heard that despite the agreement, both Abubakar Rimi and Barnabas Gemade said they would contest against Obasanjo but what happened? The chairman of the PDP, Vincent Ogbulafor wrote a letter and returned the money and said no, there is an agreement. As it stands, it is not a case that is affecting Jonathan because Jonathan is the president of this country and that is why his own is different. If he wins and goes ahead to win as president, we will still go to Court.

You mean if he wins the primaries of the party and becomes the president, you’ll still go ahead to……..

If President Jonathan wins the primaries and goes on to win the general elections, the election would have been won and lost but we will still go to court and tell them that he wasn’t qualified to contest the election.

Some presidential candidates in the North on the platform of the PDP feel offended that they were not included in the process of consensus that threw up Atiku Abubakar. In the same vein, some are of the opinion that the North should form a common front irrespective of party affiliation since there are still other presidential candidates from the North on the platform of other parties. Do you share this view?

Northern Nigeria is a vast part of Nigeria and the question of everybody talking the same way is not correct because we are democratic and everybody has his own way. We are talking about the PDP and if any of the other presidential aspirants from another platform wins, it is another matter but we are talking about the PDP. So, Buhari can win but that won’t solve the problem between us and Jonathan, Shekarau can win but it will not solve our problem with Jonathan. We, the loyal members of the PDP are saying that the South has no right of contesting this ticket with Northerners.

As you and some other PDP stalwarts want to stop President Jonathan performing through the courts, there is another case instituted by some PDP members seeking to stop Atiku Abubakar. Where do you think all these cases for and against will lead the North?

Well, I don’t know why Atiku Abubakar has become a monster that President Jonathan is so frightened of. In the camp of the President, things seem not actually propagating what he wants to do, they have their minds, attention and their power of incumbency against a particular person. Why Atiku? Atiku Abubakar is only contesting. The court case is there, that one is left in the hands of the judges but the question of campaign now seems to be between Atiku and Jonathan. It is very unfair to the people of Nigeria to be listening to childish brick bath.

We don’t like that for the people of this country and this country has gone beyond that. They should be talking about issues. Why are they so frightened? I now begin to think that Atiku Abubakar is the right person to be there because the weight of Obasanjo, the weight of the incumbency of Jonathan is now pointed to a single human being called Atiku Abubakar. Why? Let us make the field a level playing ground for everybody to contest, believe me and I promise you that if he wins by a fair deal being a member of the PDP, I’ll be campaigning for Jonathan to win the election against other parties.

What is your assessment of the INEC’s preparations for the forthcoming elections?

I am not very comfortable with the what I read and what I hear. That document that was revealed, I read it and the preparation to rig election and the money that is being voted to bribe the people will give us even worse elections than that of 2007 and that is my fear.