Dachung Musa Bagos, the member representing Jos North/East federal constituency of Plateau State, is the deputy chairman of the House Committee on Anti-corruption. In this interview, he spoke on the fallout of the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), security challenges in his state and other issues.
Primaries were conducted relatively peacefully in the PDP. Unfortunately, after the national convention and the presidential primary, all seem not to be well. How are you managing the fallout in your constituency?
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In any gathering of people there is interest; it is now left for you to manage the interest as it comes. With the gathering of great minds and politicians, in all aspects and spheres of life, understanding what brought you as a leader and why you came together are very key. So, at the end of the day, there must be a loser and a winner. It is left for the engine room of our party to be able to bring everybody together on the drawing board, reconcile them and see how we can move forward. So it is expected because everybody has his interest. Everybody wants to win an election but in the process, one person emerges. The structure of the party is expected to bring everybody together because I believe that winning an election is not about an individual but the party.
Looking at what is going on, it seems that reconciliation is far in sight. It seems the gulf is getting wider. Do you think the party has what it takes to overcome the situation?
Absolutely! It is just getting the right people to understand the issues. When you have the right persons to understand the issues, especially in terms of who will lead the conciliatory committee, we would get the issues. Before the last party congresses, I could remember how the former Senate president, Bukola Saraki, sacrificed his time and his entire team to bring everybody on board. And that worked for him.
Apart from the internal crisis you are having in the party, your base – South East and South South – are being threatened by the emergence of the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi. Do you think the PDP still has a chance?
Yes, very well, because when the electioneering campaign starts, most of these issues will be resolved. If you remember very well, the Labour Party issue became serious within this region when the All Progressives Congress (APC) brought out the Muslim-Muslim presidential candidature. We have a Muslim as the presidential candidate and a strong Christian as the vice presidential candidate, so they will understand. The PDP has given the electorate the option they are looking for. It should be understood that any vote for Peter Obi of the Labour Party is a vote for the APC. This is because Peter Obi’s votes will reduce that of the PDP in the South South and South East and it will automatically give the APC an upper hand because it will still want to maintain its sites in some of those strongholds they have. So, when we start the campaigns, most of these issues would be resolved and a lot of youths in the ‘Obidient’ campaign will see reasons that we should give the PDP a chance.
By the way, how many members of the National Assembly will go with the Labour Party as it is? Would you want to have a president that will always have a hit back from the National Assembly that makes the majority from another political party? These are some of the issues that we will all resolve during our campaigns. We will maintain our strongholds in the 2023 elections.
You have been very vocal in your calls to address insecurity in Plateau State. Do you and other members from the state discuss the way forward for the state?
Yes, we discuss as National Assembly members, not as party persons. The Deputy Speaker is also from Plateau State. We sat at one point in the beginning of our tenure to discuss some of these issues. We even visited the state during the EndSARS protests to address some of these issues with the governor. But I wouldn’t know if the governor has taken whatsoever we discussed with him to heart or not. So we discuss issues of insecurity at one point or another, formally and informally. A few months ago, some of us were in Wase and Jos South, my constituency, as a result of wanton killings.
National Assembly members from Plateau have been up and doing in respect of the issues of insecurity in the state. I don’t think there is any member from Plateau State that has not brought a motion on the floor of the House on the spate of insecurity in our various constituencies, even the senators. It is a general concern and not about the party.
But some of us feel that some of these issues could have been handled differently, not looking at party or ethnic affiliations. We have looked at these issues and concluded that the enemies of Plateau are not within. The enemies of Plateau are people that have infiltrated our constituencies at one point or another, causing havoc and making our people homeless and stopping them from going to the farm.
You always refer to Plateau as ‘Home of Peace.’ What do you think is eroding that image?
Well, you should have faith in everything you do. I don’t think our leaders and founders of the state were wrong in saying that it is the home of peace and tourism, so every leader should follow that motto. Everything is on leadership. So, if our founding fathers said the state should be a home of peace and tourism and we have agreed, whatever political affiliation you have and ethnic group you belong to, your first agenda is to drive peace and tourism. If we had followed the peaceful nature of the state, Plateau would have been competing with some of those western and eastern states in terms of economic development. Every investor wants a peaceful environment.
As tourists come in we would have medical facilities because some want to rest, and majorly of people that want to rest have one ailment or another, which means that we should have the best hospitals in the state. And when one wants to rest, at one point or another, he wants to go out and do some shopping, so you would start creating malls and have a free trade zone in the state. And one would want to visit the state and rest if the place is peaceful. Educationally, if you have three weeks or four weeks of rest, you can decide to take a short course.
So we have the potential to drive the economy of the state, but we must understand the basics of what brought us together as a people. The first assignment of every leader is to ensure that the people you are leading and their properties are safe. I feel it is still possible, but we need to go back to the drawing board. If we do that, we will be able to achieve peace. And when we achieve peace, the tourism nature of the state will come back. But when we drive on the agenda of our political parties, ethnicity and religion, we will miss the mark. This is because my religion may allow me to do what your religion does not allow you to do, so we will have conflicts of interest. It is also very possible that what your tribe does not allow you to do, my tribe allows me to do that. So, when we start driving governance based on religion and ethnicity, we will always have conflicts of interest. But when we drive the interest of the state with patriotism and what we stand for, everybody will have a space to operate.
You are in court with the Plateau State Government over the planned Jos Terminus Market renovation. Why did you go to court?
Since we are in court I wouldn’t want to make many statements on the issue. I will allow the court to come out with its verdict at the end of the day. However, let me say that I went to court because some of the issues the state government brought to the table are not clear to me as an indigene of the state. The government needs to come out clean in certain areas. I will wait to hear what the court will say at the end of the day, let me not predict.
