Timothy Golu is the Special Adviser on Strategic Communications to Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State. In this interview on the sidelines of his visit to the headquarter of the Media Trust Group on Monday, the former member of the House of Representatives spoke on the crisis in the state House of Assembly, the governor’s recent appointment of over 200 media aides, as well as the recent call by stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the governor to join the party to align the state government with the APC-led federal government.
The delay in the swearing-in of the 16 APC and Labour Party lawmakers that were supposed to replace the sacked Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers has been said to have grounded legislative actions in Plateau State. In what way is the state government affected by this development?
Democracy is about due process, and the governor is committed to this, especially on this issue. I recall that the Court of Appeal has given judgment in favour of the APC lawmakers that they should be sworn in against the 16 PDP lawmakers that they should be sacked. Before then, the House had adjourned around November to January, so the House was to reconvene on the 23rd of January. A few days before that day, two injunctions were served on the Speaker, one by the Labour Party aspirants also in the same race for the same House of Assembly. Many people didn’t know that even before the elections, the 13 LP aspirants representing 13 constituencies had obtained an injunction because their logo was omitted during the elections. There were many elections that were cancelled as a result of the omission of the logo.
So, the Court of Appeal gave judgment in favour of those people, saying that INEC should include them in the election. INEC did not comply.
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These people followed it up. Suddenly, those people who were pursuing their litigation got an injunction restraining the House due to the non-compliance of INEC with the court judgment in respect to the Labour Party’s case. That restrained the speaker from swearing in anyone. In fact, it’s not just the injunction. There’s another by a civil society organization in the state. So, the Speaker read out the two injunctions to the public. You can’t go against such an injunction. If they vacate this injunction, they will definitely be sworn in, which means that the ball is in the court of the courts of law.
You recall that the governor gave appointments to even the 16 PDP lawmakers to go and serve as liaison officers in their various constituencies. That tells you that we are ready to swear in anybody that the court gives judgment. But let the rule of law not be circumvented by our personal wishes.
But in what way is this crisis affecting governance in the state?
It is not that they (the house) are not sitting; these eight members are sitting because, constitutionally, they have the power to sit because that is the total number of our legislators. This is allowed by democracy; the two-thirds of eight can be calculated, and they can take a decision because they are eight recognized by law. As I speak to you, they are going to resume sitting tomorrow (Tuesday) again to continue discussions. They have approved a lot of things for the governor. But you know that the noise of the eight people cannot be equated to the noise of the 24 people; that is why some people are feeling the thing is not moving.
For the information of the public, the house has been moved, by resolution, to the Government House because the house premises are under renovation.
As far as we are concerned, there is nothing major that has been stalled as a result of the inability of the house to address its crisis. But we are very hopeful that very soon the courts are going to give proper attention to it so that they can resolve this thing, and whichever way it goes, the state government will comply.
Many people have been pointing accusing fingers at the governor, wondering whether he is the one who is doing this. No, he is on the executive side; everybody knows that, politically, people talk across intra- or intergovernmental levels.
The recent appointment of over 200 media aides by your governor has gotten many people talking, especially about the impact on the cost of governance.
The government is mindful of the cost of governance. In the last administration of the APC, over 300 such social media aides were recruited, but they were not doing the work that they were supposed to do; instead, we saw propaganda in the state reach its peak.
These new appointees are not just media managers, but they are going to be like communication agents. They are going to be those who pass the message of government to all the nooks and crannies of the state. They will be familiar with the policies and programmes of government so that they can deliver them to the grassroots.
We felt that a lot of our youths are unemployed or underemployed. We want them to start somewhere, and by the time they are given proper guidance and then they get another job, a very solid foundation has definitely been put in place. So, that is the purpose of it, not because we want to engage in propaganda.
They can defend the government where necessary, but we don’t expect them to blindly respond to anybody or engage in abuses that other people do just for the sake of defending a government.
A stakeholder forum of the APC recently extended an invitation to Governor Mutfwang to join the party in order to align the state government with the APC-led federal government. Is the governor considering this invite?
They are just faster than their shadows. We would have been the ones to ask them to join us because, when they were in power, they didn’t ask us to join them. Now that they are not in power, they are asking us to join. It is funny and ridiculous. You join people who are moving, so we are welcoming them. A lot of them have defected to the PDP. We’re only waiting for some key actors to make their own known. But as I speak to you, a lot of APC people in the state have joined us, and we are just waiting for a day to receive them officially.
What is also encouraging them is the fact that, as a ruling party in the state and as an opposition party in the nation, we support whatever good the federal government does that we believe is in the interest of the people. We give our own support, and whenever we feel it is not in order, we also constructively criticize. So that is strange.
What is the governor doing differently to halt the security crisis in the state?
The governor has been having sleepless nights over this issue. In the last two to three months, you’ve not had anything. When you inherit a problem, you cannot solve it in one day. But when you sit down to bring people together and look at the best way to handle it, It gives you an opportunity to review. It gives you an opportunity to bring out new measures, and I can tell you that the new measures are working. The level of reconciliation and reunion is fast returning to the state the way it used to be, and I believe that not long from now, you will see the consolidated aspect of it impact the governance in the state.
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