You are reported to have said that the Southern Kaduna crisis is as a result of the breakdown of good governance. What did you really mean?
HYAT: Let us look the issues critically. You don’t have a one-sided crisis. You are faced with a crisis that involves different parties. The first thing you should do is to identify those involved and sit with them to find out what is the problem. But by the time you come out as governor of all to say I am going to deal with you, I am going to deal with you without finding out what is the problem certainly, you are bound to make mistakes. Two, the government said it has traced those who are responsible up to outside the country. If you said you have traced them to outside the country only to come back later to tell us that it is a communal crisis, what do you want us to believe? The same government saying people from outside is also saying it is communal clashes. When the governor made reference to the General Martin Agwai Committee, General Martin Agwai came out to say that he did not submit a one-sided recommendation. He said both sides. Up till now, the governor has not responded to that position of General Martin Agwai; neither in a statement nor in action. Those whose houses were burnt, nothing has been done for them, yet he has followed those who lost their cattle to their countries to give them money to placate them. We are not saying that he should not do it, but in doing it, he should bring both parties together and say; we heard this is what happened. This is what we are going to do so that tomorrow if you hear that we have done this for the other party, you will not feel bad or think that we do not care about you. We want to start with those outside, but when we come back, we shall handle the issue at home. Definitely, people will give him maximum cooperation.
Again, when you say you are going to declare a State of Emergency, declaring a State of Emergency is not a child’s play. Before you do it, you are supposed to have mobilized your security agencies all over, map out strategies, put people at the right places then declare. How do you declare a State of Emergency on those who obey the laws of the land? You will end up finding these law abiding citizens being killed and their house burnt? Why will they not say that government is one-sided? It may not necessarily be that government is one-sided but because there is bad governance and that is why people are accusing this administration of been one-sided. Therefore, we have this problem of taking wrong decisions that if you don’t involve the people, it can get bad.
I was privileged to serve two governors as SSG. So I was involved in the security set up of the state and what should be done. I am speaking from experience, certainly the government handled these things wrongly and that is why things are worsened. Today we are hearing that even with the high presence of security agencies people cannot go to their farms. Then you start asking why? Why can’t they go to their farms? Why will security agencies be deployed to an area, a small section of a senatorial district, not the entire senatorial district; a fraction of it and people cannot go to their farms? If people cannot go to their farms, that means we are waiting for hunger. What will the government do with the people? It is dangerous! So government needs to review its style of handling security issues and be proactive when handling security matters. People keep saying that this is not the first time that crises are happening. Yes, but are we not supposed to be learning? There are reports and so of the people that handled the crises are alive, is it too much for the government to invite those who handled similar problems before and ask from them how they handled it so that they can learn from the mistakes of those who handled past crises? From such meeting, they can also hear and see where they did well an is it too much for the government to invite those who handled similar problems before and ask from them how they handled it so that they can learn from the mistakes of those who handled past crises? From such meeting, they can also hear and see where they did well and build on it. Everybody is interested in peace! The aspect of allowing the crisis to degenerate into a religious one is unfortunate. We should not allow it to degenerate.
In a SUNRISE discussion programme of ChannelsTv, the governor said what General Agwai said is correct but that it was also incorrect.
HYAT: You see this is what we are saying: if General Agwai didn’t say the correct thing, the report is with the governor, General Agwai also has his own copy of the report, let them present the report to the public.
