On Sunday, February 18, 2024, Nigerians woke up to the horrific news of the brutal murder of Mr. Sylvanus Namang, the Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Plateau State. According to reports, the one-time General Manager of the Plateau Publishing Corporation, publishers of The Nigeria Standard Group of Newspapers, was killed in cold blood by unknown persons the previous day in Pankshin, 90 kilometres south of Jos, the Plateau State capital. That heinous act once again brings to the fore in a very bloody manner the country’s continuous slide into lawlessness. Mr. Namang, a veteran journalist of great…
Author: Chris Gyang
In more ways than one, this is Nigeria’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). Its beautiful outcomes should serve as a fulcrum for addressing some of the current, critical, challenges confronting the country. As things have literally played out so far in the on-going continental fiesta, there is no gainsaying the fact that this has proved to be one of Nigeria’s most spectacular outings in recent times. This has confounded most Nigerian football enthusiasts, cynics and even aficionados who never gave the team a chance of making any significant impact. They reasoned that, just as the economy, security and other indices…
Scenes of jubilation have been reported across Plateau State. Waves of elated crowds flowed onto the streets, nooks and crannies to celebrate today’s (January 12, 2024) judgement of the Supreme Court upholding the election of Governor Caleb Mutfwang in the March 18, 2023, gubernatorial election. At last, the Supreme Court has upset the applecart. By insisting that, indeed, pre-election matters do not have a place in elections litigations, the apex court has put an official stamp of illegality, illegitimacy, on all of those members of the state and national parliaments from Plateau State who now occupy those positions as a…
All over the country, some of the judgements of some of the elections tribunals and the subsequent ones at the appellate courts have generated considerable ill-feelings and controversies. But that of Plateau State has attracted more attention because of the contradictory verdicts the tribunals gave on the same matter of whether or not the issue of the Peoples Democratic Party’s possession of a structure should form the basis for litigation at all. Notwithstanding, 11 and 4 PDP members in the state and national parliaments respectively have been sacked by the Appeal Court. But before judgement day in the gubernatorial elections…
We knew crude oil before we knew ourselves as citizens of one country. That is the tragedy of Nigeria. The curse of the Black Gold hangs heavy on our necks. Had crude oil been discovered in Nigeria some decades after independence, surely, our rallying points would have turned out to be very different – much more edifying, appealing and saner – today. But so far, our tortuous journey as a geo-political entity and people has been substantially defined by the struggle for the control of the wealth accruing from Nigeria’s huge oil deposits. While other nations and countries have…
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids. A good character carries with it the highest power of causing a thing to be believed – Aristotle. The pursuit and exercise of power and influence expose some of man’s basest instincts. But there are times when leadership brings out the nobility in man, even if rarely. Some men and women can effortlessly kill, cheat, lie and employ all manner of intrigues to gain and hold on to power. For them, all is fair in that game. But not in a liberal democracy.…
In the popular imagination, the ass, or donkey, is reputed to be one of the most unintelligent, lazy and stupid domestic animals around. As a result, pejorative phrases and words such as ‘Don’t be such an ass!’, ‘I made an ass of myself!’, ‘dumb-ass’, ‘jackass’, etc, have spun off from this perception. Obviously, when Charles Dickens’ character in the 1838 classic novel, Oliver Twist, made a caricature of the law by comparing it to an ass, he must have had that very picture of the donkey at the back of his mind. Disgusted at the law, Mr. Bumble had taken…
It is entirely fortuitous that as the current governments at the state and federal levels marked their first one hundred days, the sudden removal of fuel subsidy was having devastating effects on the lives of citizens and the world was coming to terms with the aftershocks of the military coups executed in two African countries, among other events. But, when you look below the surface, you will find some salient but incredible nexuses between the three. So, can we extract some sense from these seemingly unrelated situations? During the commemorations of the first one hundred days of these administrations, those…
In a piece titled, ‘Plateau: In Search of Courageous Leadership’, I had written, “In times of crises, citizens look up to their leader for protection, respite and direction. A leader who takes charge from the front, securing the values, identity and posterity of his/her people. And the people trust and support him with the assurance that he would neither lead them astray nor abandon or betray them. “From antiquity to the present day, these are some of the most fundamental grounds on which the legitimacy of leaders and their relationship with their followers are founded.” (See DAILY POST, August 28,2021.)…
Today, the entire machinery of government in Plateau State has literally ground to a halt. This has been the situation since May 10 when civil servants finally commenced an industrial action, having given the administration several opportunities to redeem itself and meet their demands but to no avail. Three months of unpaid salaries, years of piled-up promotions for deserving staff, lack of overheads for ministries, departments and agencies and nepotism in the appointment and promotion of officers, among other problems, combined to bring the state bureaucracy to its knees. It is therefore no surprise that the state has continued to…
Obviously, the enemy was mightily upset. After eight long, horrific and brutal years of sorrow, apprehension and gloom, the overwhelming victory of Barrister Caleb Mutfwang in the March 18, 2023, gubernatorial vote finally offered Plateau people a respite, a ray of hope. So, across political party, ethnic and religious divides, they engaged in tumultuously celebration, as one family. By perpetrating that massacre of May 15, 2023, on the very soul of the governor-elect’s homeland, our enemies intended to inflict maximum fear and pain that will frighten him from stamping his feet and confronting this persistent injustice done the peace-loving Plateau…
In continuation of his engagement with key stakeholders, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang, Plateau State Governor-Elect, undertook another visit on April 6, 2023. These are aimed at laying the foundation for the smooth take-off of his administration and providing a realistic template for the seamless conduct of government business towards the realisation of his manifesto without delay. He was at the Federal Ministry of Mines and Steel headquarters in Abuja where he had a very fruitful interface with the Minister, Olamilekan Adegbite. Certainly, he has shown that he is not an armchair governor-in-waiting. He has portrayed himself as a highly motivated leader…
Plateau State Governor-Elect, Barrister Caleb Mutfwang, certainly understands that the herculean task of restoring Plateau’s shattered glory is not going to be a leisurely walk in the park. After overwhelmingly securing the mandate of Plateau people to be their next governor, he promised them that he would hit the ground running immediately he assumes office. Many thought that he meant that he would not waste time but start working immediately he is sworn in. But he has already started running even before he hits the ground, so to say. This is because the state is in dire straits, buffeted so…
The drums are silent. The spontaneous celebrations that greeted the announcement of Caleb Mutfwang as winner of the March 18 Plateau State gubernatorial election are over. At least for now. It is time to start strategizing for governance. Serious governance. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. In Plateau State, the crown will be studded with thorns for the in-coming governor. The burdens he will inherit will be enormous and the weight of expectations of citizens is incredibly heavy, to say the least. Victory, like the sweet smelling rose, attracts butterflies, other insects, even bees. Which sting. The governor-elect…
Sometimes, even the elements foretell the fortunes of men. At exactly 2.10 PM on Sunday, March 19, 2023, it started to rain. Not in showers or drizzles. It was a heavy downpour, also witnessed in other parts of Plateau State. Who says God has abandoned this land? That sudden rainfall brought with it wonderful tidings. At the very moment it touched this parched earth, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was already leading in the gubernatorial and house of assembly elections held the day before. The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, was trailing behind. As the rains fell, it appeared…
Believe it or not, one of the most fundamental and contentious issues that has dominated and shaped the nature and outcomes of the 2023 general elections so far is the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. This is most especially so in Plateau State whose citizens are very passionate about their Christian faith and identity. One of the reasons for this is that a couple of the European Christian missionaries who brought the Gospel to Nigeria established some of their first stations in what is today known as Plateau State more than a hundred years ago. Being…
Saturday, March 11, 2023, is judgement day for the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration in Plateau State. It is a date many citizens have anxiously waited for with so much expectation and high hopes. As things stand, the inevitable verdict of the people is bound to be justifiably, proportionately, damning. The long-term outcome shall be the rebirth of the state and its citizens. The past eight years of the APC have left in their wake a forlorn populace and a devastated landscape devoid of the kind of development other states of the federation have experienced. Plateau State citizens have never…
At last, Mr. Lalong has come full circle. The bubble has burst. The chicken’s rump is finally exposed. Signs that this governor would ultimately do himself in and drag the hard-earned pedigree of Plateau down the cesspit of ignominy emerged very early in the life of his administration. In a fit of misguided exuberance, Governor Lalong had gleefully berated his fellow Samuel Ortom of Benue State before Aso Rock correspondents for implementing its anti-open grazing legislation. On New Year’s Day of 2018, herdsmen had killed about 72 people in retaliation. The mass burial for the victims was held on January…
I should begin with this confession: Once upon a time, I was cynical about ordinary Nigerians’ incurable docility – even when they are pushed to the wall by the glaring failures of their governments and the inherent dysfunctionalities of the system. Unlike the French and Americans, even the Sudanese and Tunisians closer to us here in Africa, Nigerians do not seem to possess the drive to spill out into the streets and do demonstrations to demand for change. Are we a spineless lot eternally condemned to be the butt of abuse by our leaders? I used to ask. For decades…
Few political leaders in present-day Nigeria have had the privilege of influencing and benefitting from the Buhari dispensation the way Nasiru Ahmed El-Rufai has done. Not until recently, though. In most of the last eight years that he has been governor with his kinsman, Buhari, as president, El-Rufai has carried on in the true tradition of those core northern political elite who sufficiently believe they own Nigeria. No wonder, Bola Ahmed Tinubu (the infamous Emi lekan exponent), has conscripted him to serve as one of the key hatchet men in leading the campaign towards his emergence as president on Saturday.…
As the country gets set to elect a new president next Saturday, there are strong indications that all is not well within the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. The cracks are widening at break-neck speed. But even observers of Nigeria’s political evolution, especially from 2015 when the APC took power from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are stunned by this turn of events. The pundits predicted that the APC, which was knocked together chiefly to grab power, would sooner or later disintegrate. That it was only a matter of time for this alliance of strange bedfellows to arrive a precipitous…
New Zealand’s immediate past Prime Minister, Jacinta Arden, made history recently when she made the shocking declaration that she would not be seeking re-election and revealed that she would resign by February 7, which she proudly did. The PM had confessed that she was taking that step because she “no longer had enough in the tank” to continue “the most privileged job anyone could ever have.” That is exactly what President Buhari should have done a long time ago. But in Nigeria, and most other African countries, leaders do not resign from their privileged positions even when, as we are…
By Chris Gyang Nothing poignantly symbolizes the decrepit and gloomy face of governance in Plateau State such as the thick darkness that envelopes the Plateau State Government House at Little Rayfield every night. Driving past that seat of government from the well-lit, ritzy and upscale Rayfield at sunset, you will never imagine that just a few metres to your left is the fence of what used to be one of the most magnificent government houses in the entire country. Close associates say that Governor Lalong harbours a deep aversion for the government house, built by his predecessor, because its sheer…
Those Nigerians who once thought that the Buhari presidency would take our country to a destination better than this forlorn outpost of stasis, anarchy and overwhelming misery now know better. They are shaking their heads in utter regret, and sheer bewilderment. When we warned, even as early as the days before the 2015 presidential vote, that Buhari’s rabid sectionalism and extreme religious proclivities would push Nigeria to a sad precipice, we were excoriated and branded as hateful and irrational peddlers of Islamophobia. But those who pointed accusing fingers at us then are now also crying, painfully – victims of Islamist…
Nothing rattles Mr. President. That is, the way the leader of a country that has fulfilled all the undignified requirements of a failed state naturally should. Confronted with relatively less problems, leaders of other democracies, even dictatorships, have been known to quake, but gather themselves up and trudge on. But not Mr. Buhari. He appears to have crumbled a long time ago from the sheer weight of the responsibilities of governance. Even the uptick in kidnappings for ransom, armed banditry, Fulani herdsmen’s violent land-grabbing in parts of the Middle Belt, Islamist terrorism, mind-bugling corruption in the corridors of his administration…
A perfect storm is brewing in the house of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC. There are surging waves of political betrayals, imposition of pro-establishment and powerful groups’ and individuals’ aspirants, dubious application the Electoral Acts’ consensus clause to favour certain aspirants, etc, dangerously swirling in this APC contraption. These are threatening to drown this house of cards, ad-hoc palaces of convenience hurriedly erected on sand, to serve the purpose of capturing power by a motley alliance of strange bedfellows. Nothing vexes the Nigerian politician more than a threat to his personal political ambition. That, he is prepared to wholeheartedly…
It is morally reprehensible and the highest form of injustice to betray someone who has labored hard, always bending over backwards, to please you. But in the game of politics, sometimes morality is kicked to the background and the cut-throat dictum – “the end justifies the means” – is put forward as the overriding principle. Perhaps no politician in Nigeria today feels the sting of this sort dictum like Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau State. For the records, he also occupies the ‘exalted’ position of the Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum. Here is one governor who has spent…
That Nigeria’s public universities’ lecturers decided to start yet another strike action today may not be entirely fortuitous. The signs have been there all along. Except that that the government deliberately refused to listen to them. And the fact that it falls on the day the world, especially the youth, is celebrating Valentine’s Day, a day of love, says a lot about the dark humour that has become the reality of the very being of our citizens. Consider this: on this day when most our youth in universities are celebrating this one occasion that gives them some form of happiness…
Tinubu & 2023 Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT), who dressed up Mr. Buhari in the borrowed regalia of a messiah, paraded him round the democratic world as a man of integrity with the courage to fight corruption, reduce insecurity, enhance economic buoyancy and give impetus to democratic norms, now wants to succeed President Buhari in 2023. Of course there is no problem in any qualified citizen aspiring to the number one position of the country. In fact, Nigerians across ethnic, religious and political divides are fervently praying and working towards ensuring that the next president extricates them and their country…
Will they keep on desperately clinging to power even as it continues to be a blight on them? Will it not eternally signpost their hankering after raw political power, undiluted by the profound essences of responsibility, the milk of human kindness, honour, good character and conscience, equity, integrity and sacrifice? Unlike the Daily Trust newspapers, the core north’s political and religious elite and their accomplices in the Middle Belt and other parts of Nigeria, we shall not gloat, white wash or side-step essential truths about the shedding of the blood of innocent Nigerians based on primordial ethnic and religious sentiments.…
