Why The Benue People Are Opposed To Governor Suswam’s Re-Election Bid

Under the globe-trotting Governor Gabriel Suswam, democracy in Benue is in peril with journalists, perceived opponents and the civil society in general paying dearly. The Benue people’s clamour for change should put an end to the Augean stables in Makurdi.

Like any first term state executive, Governor Suswam of Benue is loudly proclaiming his intention to seek re-election in 2011.

And, not surprisingly, he wants to do so on the platform of his party, the PDP. In Nigeria where incumbency and a host of other factors tend to confer awesome advantages on governors to the point where some of them start behaving as if they are above the laws of the land, Suswam and his allies may be counting on their access to the state’s resources and their control of the apparatus of government in order to ensure his ascendancy beyond May 29 2011. Yet, it should be quite obvious to any keen observer of the Benue political scene that the good people of the state have made up their minds that the governor’s bid for political self-perpetuation at the Makurdi Government House will be met with resounding repudiation. The reasons are not hard to fathom.

The groundswell of negative sentiments toward Suswam and his government has moved beyond the vagaries of partisanship and personalities-based politics. The governor’s confrontational leadership style, his tunnel vision coupled with the profligacy and incompetence associated with his administration as well as a worrying anti-intellectual temper on his part, are objectively alienating forces whose impact on the psyche of the average Benue citizen has been one of anguish and disillusionment. Significantly, since the governor has made known his second term ambition, the logical thing to do is for us to subject his tenure to greater public scrutiny. Surely, Suswam and his supporters do not expect us to act as mere sounding boards for their fantasies regarding 2011.

The Suswam track record. It is interesting to note that when Governor Suswam started his soon-to-expire mandate, he made the right noises by harping on his 2007 slogan of ‘’Our Benue, Our Future’’. The dubious legitimacy of his ‘regime’ notwithstanding, the  state’s inhabitants appeared impressed by the can-do posture of a new ‘manager’ who was telling them that he would ‘brighten up’ the streets of their capital as well as build the state’s roads while simultaneously helping with the economic advancement of their respective communities. For a while, the Benue people seemed genuinely in love with what they believed was the industriousness, if not the transparency of the governor and his administration. A few streets were hastily tarred even as more lamp posts were erected on major city roads. Here and there, contracts were announced over the air waves. Momentum seemed to be on the side of the young administration. Alas, the bubble of false hopes was short-lived, punctured as it came into collusion with the cruel reality of a mendacious official rhetoric and comportment. Today, ‘’Our Benue, Our Future’’ does elicit only derision and mistrust. Like a recurring nightmare, that pitch has become synonymous with a cautionary tale, at once a testimony and a reminder of what the people ought to do in order to salvage their state from the reign of charlatans and false prophets. Under Suswam, the average Benue man or woman has become much poorer and hungrier despite the sobering fact that the revenues accruing to the state from traditional sources have witnessed an unprecedented increase since May 29, 2007. As the state’s underdeveloped industrial base crumbles further into a sinkhole of rot and abandonment, Mr. Suswam and his government seem unperturbed by the unfavourable verdict of the masses. The governor plods on, arrogantly and insouciantly, subjecting our sensibilities to new taunts as he desperately seeks support in the forthcoming elections.

 A favourite re-election slogan of the Suswam camp states that the governor is Mr. Infrastructure, the implication being that his government is preoccupied with the provision of infrastructural development in all critical sectors – roads, education, health, agriculture, etc. The evidence on the ground tells an entirely different story, though. Take Makurdi, for instance. For nearly four decades since Nigeria’s independence, the Benue capital had remained a dusty, sleepy backwater of deprivation and a paucity of basic amenities like water, electricity and a decent transport system. As a matter of fact, Makurdi had all this while been the only state capital lacking in any meaningful governmental presence to the extent that its dwellers could boast of a post office, a weather-beaten and dilapidated structure by the River Benue, as the main federal landmark in the town. This antediluvian edifice has remained a poignant and no doubt ironical metaphor for the perennial neglect that successive national and provincial governments have inflicted on the state and its growing population. When George Akume took over as state governor in 1999, he consciously and purposefully set out to halt the bleak trend. Inspired by a single-minded vision to transform Benue in its countryside and urban components, he paid special attention to the building of the state capital by opening up the street-starved city. All of a sudden, in a space of three-odd years, Makurdi wore a completely new look with an intricate network of major streets, side-roads, culverts, a relatively viable drainage system and a housing boom that has greatly helped provide a veneer of urban polish to what was once  a dismal rural milieu of thatched huts and drab surroundings. The spill-over effect of the Akume-initiated urban renewal has been enormous. Suswam was expected to build on this solid foundation. It speaks volumes that he has opportunistically and in a legerdemain, sought to lay claim to Akume’s achievements in the area of infrastructural development in Makurdi and elsewhere. But Suswam’s transgressions are much more grave and far-reaching than his indecent attempt to reap where he did not sow.

The people’s verdict. Today, after three years of the Suswam sinecure, the verdict of the man on the street is a harsh but apt one. It paints a gloomy picture of mediocrity, malversation and misgovernance. Pundits are also adding their sober voices to the chorus of disenchantment. The grievances against Suswam are many and varied. A few will suffice here. The Benue governor has been nicknamed ‘the deserter’, an absentee ‘landlord’ due to his frequent and extended trips abroad – supposedly for the ever so elusive foreign investments. The governor is said to harbour an abiding dislike for Makurdi which serves as the administrative as well as the economic hub of the state. Apparently, he finds the Benue capital uninhabitable. It is simply appalling that a state representative of Suswam’s stature should seek to invoke the peculiar climatic conditions associated with Makurdi as an excuse for his truancy. There is no moral or rational justification that can possibly explain the abdication by a governor who has sworn to uphold the nation’s pre-eminent document, namely, the constitution. One of the main injunctions of the Nigerian constitution is that the purpose of government at all levels is the betterment of the socio-economic condition of the citizenry. To brazenly run away from that solemn responsibility as the Benue governor seems to be doing in the case of the state’s principal city is tantamount to admitting that one is unworthy of the people’s confidence. That one does not deserve their mandate. While in Nigeria, Mr. Suswam is often to be found in Abuja, a zone of relative comfort away from the Makurdi ‘cauldron’. Indeed, Abuja is said to provide a rather generous offering of bacchanalian distractions for Nigeria’s curious class of the ‘nouveaux riches’ in the Suswam category. Benue indigenes would be excused for wondering aloud why on earth the man wanted the governorship of the state in the first place. To equate public office, consciously or unconsciously, with access to the Nigerian gravy train is to show the utmost contempt for the populace and its legitimate aspirations. It is hubris in its most unwholesome manifestations. A key area where the governor’s disregard for the people’s welfare has been very much evident is his handling of matters pertaining to education. 

The reign of fiscal irresponsibility and sleaze. A good yardstick for measuring the efficacy ( or the lack of it) of any government is the way it manages public finances. Apart from the governor’s scandalous peregrinations around the globe that have no doubt attracted hefty bills, there is the matter of endemic disregard for budgetary commitments which has invariably occasioned either a delay in the execution of key projects or the shoddy handling of others as has been the case with a great number of road works. Another thorny issue has to do with what many consider as the inflated price tags on government projects that are rarely subjected to competitive bidding. Distressingly also, projects that have been announced with great fanfare rarely translate to tangible accomplishments. A notable example of an inflated and poorly executed project is the awful street lighting in the state capital. At an estimated cost of at least half a million naira per pole, the electrification exercise that was supposed to provide effective lighting for the streets of Makurdi has instead left them in partial darkness. The few major streets that have electricity poles are so badly lithe that driving or walking on them at night is a hazardous affair. The street lighting is of such inferior quality that were the Suswam government a serious one, it would have refused to pay the contractors responsible for the obviously mediocre job. As for those who may be wondering why the solar-powered street lighting in Makurdi under governor Suswam is such a big deal, let it be known that what passes for lighting there is a faint and yellowish glow that exudes an eerie ambiance reminiscent of ghost narratives. Apart from its budgetary implications, the ghastly street lighting of the Makurdi metropolis should be seen as an act of administrative failure and irresponsibility that toys with the security of motorists and pedestrians alike. Surely, there should be consequences. The re-allocation of funds in current budgets for projects that have already been fully paid for from previous budgets is another avenue for the fleecing of Benue by Suswam and his acolytes. The fiscal recklessness of the governor is also noticeable in the state’s worsening debt profile. In one of those cruel ironies, his administration has gone on an unparalleled borrowing spree with hardly anything to show for it and at a time when records indicate that more money has been received by the state’s treasury during the current Suswam government than under any other administration in the history of the state. Another valid grievance is the fact that contracts for projects are overwhelmingly being awarded to persons or companies with no serious social or philosophical attachment to Benue. A sizeable chunk of the contract bazaar is said to benefit entities based in the South-West zone which the governor’s wife hails from. A responsible government should, as a matter of priority, invest in local expertise to help in its development drive. The sidetracking of Benue indigenes or corporate bodies in the award of contracts, it is feared, has led to capital flight from the state. Surely, there should be consequences. In saner societies the world over, governance at the grassroots level is a sacred undertaking of sorts. Alas, under Suswam, local government councils have been turned into piggy banks for predators linked to the Makurdi Government House. The Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs is a notorious outfit which has greatly contributed to the Augean Stables that the Suswam administration has become today. Importantly also, anecdotal accounts do paint a disturbing picture of profligacy and wanton spending on frivolities by the first family. In an increasingly depressed economic environment, Suswam and his sidekicks continue to show their insensitivity through a vulgar display of posh and exotic automobiles and other acquisitions that speak to opulence of questionable provenance. The hedonistic proclivities of the governor and his entourage are bound to aggravate the collapse of moral values plaguing Benue.

Governor Suswam as a polarizing figure. A true leader, they say, is one who is capable and willing to unite rather than divide; to consciously cultivate consensus across the various divides instead of sowing the seeds of social disharmony and distrust. It goes without saying that peace is sine qua non for economic prosperity. An atomistic society at war with itself is the direct antithesis of development. A situation whereby administrative structures are illegally and unconscionably deployed in an unnecessary and diversionary fight against political foes, real or imaginary, cannot bode well for communal understanding. The exacerbation of societal schisms through a deliberate pandering to base or primordial allegiances is a recipe for disaster. The nurturing of primitive and clannish loyalties for partisan political gain - a wrong-headed ploy which has come to define the Suswam misrule -, must be dismissed as short-sighted, foolish and ultimately counterproductive. During much of the current Suswam administration, Gboko which the Tiv consider as an iconic symbol of ethnic cohesiveness and identity has been subjected to a relentless, if debilitating war of attrition with little or no thought spared the short or long-term consequences on the stability of Tivland and Benue in general. The Gboko local government council has become a darkly familiar terrain in a savage proxy war that Suswam has been waging on his political benefactor, Senator Akume. A pertinent question to ask at this juncture is this: Where are the self-acclaimed elders of Tivland and Benue as their society is impudently and recklessly pilloried by agents of reaction and banditry? Our soi-disant elders of every hue do risk losing any claim to leadership when all they seem to do is engage in a cowardly and self-serving submission to truancy by merely taking sides, for pecuniary gratification, as is apparently the case, in the internecine struggle involving Suswam and Akume. Instead of calling the governor to order, the state legislature whose members are known for their spinelessness and self-seeking histrionics has remarkably opted for a facile but damaging surrender to executive skulduggery and rascality. It is a telling indictment that the speaker of the state legislature, Mr. Tsumba, has failed in his duty as a moderating influence against the excesses of Governor Suswam. The Benue speaker is towing the line of executive gangsterism with his ill-advised support for the unlawful suspension of the chairman of the Gboko local government council, Simon Abua whose sins seem to derive from the fact that he is an alleged Akume loyalist. By remorselessly unleashing centrifugal forces in the zones which are predominantly populated by the majority Tiv, Suswam and his allies are sending out the message that they cannot be trusted. Suswam’s unfortunate association with bickering and violence in Benue does mark him out as a figure of disunity and destabilization. It portrays him as someone lacking in circumspection. This is unbecoming. It smacks of deeply ingrained anti-social tendencies on the part of the Benue governor. Those tendencies are taking their toll in significant ways one of which is Benue’s increasing loss of political clout at the federal level. A situation whereby the Tiv who are Nigeria’s fourth ethnic group have no representation in an enlarged federal cabinet must be denounced as the product of grossly irresponsible politicking by those who should know better. But more importantly, it is the continued marginalization of Tivland and Benue through, amongst other things, the lack of essential federal projects that should be of greater concern to the people. The blame for this sad state of affairs must be put squarely on the shoulders of the putative Tiv leadership and especially on those of the Benue governor due to his apparent inability and lack of political will to help articulate our interests nationally.

The grim state of affairs in Gboko seems to mirror the deteriorating security situation in much of Benue. Naka, for instance, is embroiled in social conflict arising from alleged political interference by state authorities in its traditional council matters. Insecurity and lawlessness are on the rise as demonstrated by the violent ransacking of churches and private residences in the past few months by armed robbers and suspected thugs in Makurdi and other localities. Chillingly, journalists have, in the exercise of their professional functions, been the victims of brutal assaults by persons said to have privileged relations with the Suswam government.  The spate of political killings targeting perceived enemies of the Suswam administration is unheard of in the history of the state. A Nigerian magazine called ‘Power Steering’ has in its edition of July 2010 dwelt on this sinister underbelly of the Suswam stranglehold in Benue. On top of this mess, there are deeply unnerving reports that Governor Suswam has recruited a ‘private army’ ahead of the forthcoming elections. The presence of suspected thugs on the government payroll does conjure up unsettling memories of a vicious South-East vigilante outfit called Bakassi Boys that was used by some state governments there during the last Obasanjo regime to intimidate political opponents. Of course, that so-called vigilante group was disbanded by the federal government when it became apparent that state governors had converted it into a Gestapo-like terror squad.. The police command in Benue and the relevant national security bodies should seriously investigate reports regarding ‘Suswam’s private army’ with a view to nipping in the bud any nefarious and anti-democratic designs that the governor and his errand boys may be hatching. Vigilance on the part of the citizenry in general is de rigueur.
 
Suswam’s hubris and the peoples’s response. The appropriate response to the reign of impunity that the state is witnessing under Gabriel Suswam should not be through the use of violence. Change of the transformational kind will come to Benue by way of the ballot box, that is to say via the respect of the sovereign will of the people to choose their representatives. Benue citizens of voting age must register to vote. Enlightened self-interest demands that faced with the indubitable evidence of the governor’s unpardonable abdication and a shocking absence of any cautionary voices, both local and national, the Benue people have no other choice than to register their disapproval by sending an unmistakable message, namely, that they have had enough. In the next governorship election therefore, they will endeavour to vote out Suswam and his anti-people administration. A lot is at stake. We owe it to our children and generations yet unborn to ensure that the profligate and inept  Suswam government is not returned to power. It is time for deliverance and all hands must be on deck.
The role of the organized opposition will be crucial in this regard. It is not enough to want change in Benue. There should be no room for wishful thinking. Emphasis will have to be placed on proactive strategizing, namely, the type that delivers concrete outcomes. If the Benue people are truly serious about having the kind of inspirational leadership that would make a palpable difference in their lives, they will have to support determined opposition forces, the calibre that will offer a credible electoral alternative to the current Suswam dominion of reckless impunity. The civil society has a critical role to play by sensitizing the electorate and seeing to it that the people do actually register to vote and eventually vote and go on to protect their vote on election day. Of course, it is no mean task to safeguard the people’s electoral mandate considering our recent past and especially the inimical roles played by the INEC under the wayward leadership of Mr. Iwu and the various security outfits whose partisanship has been a decisive factor in the rigging of polls in this country. Nevertheless, armed with faith in themselves and a determination to do the right thing by securing their collective destiny, the citizens of Lagos, Kano, Bauchi and only recently, Anambra, have demonstrated that no amount of malevolent intent can thwart a people united in a common desire to plant the seeds of sustainable prosperity for their society.  In the weeks and months ahead, it is conceivable that more spurious arguments will be advanced by the very elements that are unduly benefitting from the untenable status quo in Benue. They and their agents will, amongst other lame excuses, shamelessly harp on the nebulous politics of zoning for elective posts amongst the Tiv as an argument in favour of Suswam’s re-election quest. They will be ignoring the fact that the governor lost the moral and political standing to seek the mandate of the Tiv and that of Benue the moment he set out on a collusion course with the democratic aspirations of the people. And significantly, by his reneging on the PDP’s power rotation or zoning agreement during the July 26-27, 2010 meeting of the Northern Governors Forum held in Kaduna, Governor Suswam has lost all credibility to canvass for electoral support by invoking zoning as a valid alibi. By blindly and desperately throwing his lot with the anti-zoning apostates, including Jonathan who has shown a casual disregard for Benue and its legitimate concerns, the Benue governor is betraying a troubling readiness to sacrifice our state’s short and long term interests at the altar of crass opportunism and parochial calculations. Suswam’s zoning fiasco is yet another indication of his worrisome lack of philosophical vision regarding the way forward for Benue and its people.

As the governor grapples with the growing unpopularity of his administration, his kneejerk but dangerous resort to panicky measures of expediency is causing untold havoc on the political and economic health of the state and that of Tivland in particular.   Surely, there should be consequences. Suswam’s re-election bid should suffer strong rejection at the hands of the very people for whom he has shown so much contempt all these years. The various churches (and mosques) will also have a key role to play by helping enlighten their congregations on what is at stake in the next governorship election. They have a moral duty to educate through pastoral sermons that elucidate without necessarily getting involved in partisan proselytization. We have crossed the Rubicon in our collective will to restore sanity to the polity in Benue. From Katsina-Ala to Gboko; from Zaki-Biam to Naka; from Otukpo to Oju; also from Vandeikya to Aliade; from Adikpo to Makurdi via Korinya and from Buruku to Igumale, the die is cast, so to speak. Suswam’s days at the Makurdi Government House are numbered. All men and women of goodwill should join the rainbow coalition of democratic forces whose noble mission is to usher in a new era of genuine development that should benefit all the segments of our society as opposed to the current situation which is characterized by the systematic mismanagement of the state’s resources by an increasingly intolerant Suswam and his small circle of associates and hangers-on.

Aonduna Tondu.