Dachum Bagos is a former member of the House of Representatives and a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Plateau State. In his interview with reporters in Jos, the state capital, he spoke on the party crisis and how it can be resolved. KOLADE ADEYEMI reports
What are you doing to encourage youths’ participation in politics, as someone who became a federal lawmaker as a youth?
My slogan and belief for the Plateau youth have always been that we should have a greater and greater Plateau. That’s why I stand on equipping the next generation. That’s why we always encourage Plateau youth that you are leaders of today, preparing for your tomorrow. Whether we like it or not, most of us were toddlers many years ago. Today, we are who we are. And if we are not prepared, we will always have accidental leaders.
Mine is to prepare the youths to key into any role—in leadership, in their assignments, in whatever field they desire—so that they are ready for the task. We should not sit down and wait to be told what to do, but rather, stand up and be prepared to do what is right.
I can see that zeal in the Plateau youth. I can see how passionate they are. I want to encourage them—let’s continue on that path. Let’s keep faith with the government. But again, in keeping faith with the government, we should be able to advise. We should be able to voice our advice in the right way. And by doing so, we are preparing for leadership tomorrow.
Because if you don’t do anything—if you just sit down and wait for someone to give you leadership—well, they say power is never given. And politicians will always give power to those they are comfortable with.
But let’s have credibility in our youths so that they will be prepared for leadership tomorrow. So to the Plateau youths—let’s remain resolute. Let’s be credible so that our elders will trust us enough to show us the way and prepare the path.
The prevailing insecurity has been cited as a sign that Nigeria is a failed nation. What is your reaction to this?
The most lucrative business (in quotes) for some people, especially in the underworld, is war. A lot of people benefit from the lack of peace. I can tell you, some people even sit down to plan evil. They plan evil.
As a Christian, I know a verse in my Bible—Proverbs 1:30—that talks about inventors of evil. So yes, are there people that benefit from the lack of peace, from the killings, from war within and around the world? Yes, there are. That’s why we have words like bandits, terrorists, and mercenaries. These people exist because someone somewhere is gaining from it.
But my problem with all of this is that those responsible for securing lives and property have not addressed these issues. They haven’t identified and prosecuted these people. They haven’t provided justice to the victims or taken solid preventive measures. That’s the problem we have in this country.
Today, you’ll have people move in a mass, on bikes, enter a community, kill people, and disappear—and they can’t be traced. They’re not caught. You can’t even profile them. Who are these people?
When this keeps happening, it tells you something is wrong somewhere. Somebody is benefiting from this. There’s an undertone somewhere.
Many Nigerians have called for state police. In your view, is that the way out?
I have been advocating for state police, too. I can tell you, once we get state police, part of its structure will involve empowering the locals—the local chiefs—and also empowering state governors.
With state police, you will know that in Taroh land, for example, the DPO in charge of that local government will be a Taroh man. The officer in charge of that community will be someone who understands the terrain, who knows the people. Policing by our people is very key.
But for now, what we keep encouraging—and what we are still pushing—is that when you see something, say something. People don’t usually talk because of fear—fear of becoming the victim. I can tell you, there are many cases where community leaders or even youths, when they report someone, instead of the security agencies taking them seriously and investigating, it is they who end up being detained. So the fear of becoming a victim is what’s stopping most community members from speaking up. But once we have a proper law—laws that support witness protection, laws that give locals the power and opportunity to make arrests—things will begin to change.
What is your comment on the allegation that land grabbing is the cause of the violence in some Plateau communities?
That’s why these communities have been attacked—because those 64 communities are some of the most high-yield communities in terms of mineral deposits. And like I said, as journalists, always go and investigate. These communities are very fertile in terms of agriculture. These are communities where you can just go and put your crops, put your seeds, and they will grow with little or no use of fertiliser.
There are communities where you don’t even dig deep before you find different mineral resources. These are ungoverned spaces. That is why we need to restructure Nigeria, to give the state governors powers over some of these mineral resources. Because right now, the mineral resources belong to the federal government, and as far as I’m concerned, the federal government is not interested. They are only focused on crude oil.
We should be asking: how can we govern most of these mineral-rich areas? Today, mining is one of the most unstructured sectors in the country. South Africa is South Africa because of mining. If you are a hero in South Africa, you are a miner. But the mining sector there is structured—you don’t have these issues of bandits and mercenaries. So the Federal Government needs to look into these ungoverned spaces and how the federal and state governments can benefit from the country’s mineral deposits.
The exclusive list in the Constitution is overburdened. We need to unbundle that list and give the governors the power to take charge of their domains. That’s how we can begin to recover these places.
Plateau State has the anti-land-grabbing law, but implementation is the problem. How can you get this land back without having the security architecture within your domain? It’s impossible. How can you evacuate those who have dominated the areas without your security setup?
So, State Police is key. This takes us back to restructuring. I expected that our current president, who has been championing the issue of restructuring before now, should start championing the issue of giving the state governors the necessary powers to take charge of some of these ungoverned spaces.
Are you also planning to defect to the APC?
Let me say this clearly: the problem we have today is a lack of good governance. That’s what we are working for—and we believe in the person of the governor. As for defection, I believe in ideology. I can tell you: the ideology of the APC is not my ideology. God forbid I become one of those politicians who, today, say the APC is cancer, and then tomorrow they become cancerous. No. We need to understand what politics and party politics are really about. For me, the PDP has an ideology I believe in. The APC does not reflect my beliefs. Unless my ideology changes, I will not go to a party that doesn’t align with my convictions. This habit of defecting from the PDP to the APC, just to make it look like we’re all heading into a one-party state—that’s not acceptable. We should even begin to ask: why are people defecting?
Because what I see is an attempt to push everyone into a one-party system. That’s dangerous. We must have opposing voices that speak truth, not necessarily to challenge for the sake of challenge, but to address issues that don’t reflect the will of our people. That’s the value of standing by an ideology.
What is your comment on what is happening in Bokkos?
What happened in Bokkos has affected various communities. What will the Federal Government do? Because it seems the Plateau government is overwhelmed with the burden of what is happening. We have called on the Federal Government to assist people with humanitarian support, to help survivors of these attacks—Bokkos, Mangu, B/Ladi, and other places. I’m from Jos South, I’m not from Bokkos.
Now, part of what you asked, I’ve already spoken about. But let me still give clarity on one thing: I am not an advocate of waiting for people to be killed and then following them with rice. Our people can farm rice very well. Our people can farm yams. Our people can do anything. And that’s why it will be very difficult to see me carrying rice to go and give to victims or IDPs—because that’s not what we’re after.
We are not waiting for our people to be killed, and then you follow them with rice. That’s why I always say: if I see anybody from the Federal Government coming with rice to Plateau State because our people are being killed, then they are selfish. They are not fair to the Plateau people.
What the Plateau people need is justice, not rice. We don’t even need that humanitarian, whatever they call it. As far as I’m concerned—and I’ve always said it—the humanitarian agency or ministry is a conduit for corruption. Because the Abacha loot that was returned to Nigeria, and they said it was through humanitarian support for 5,002 people, where is it? What impact has it made?
They are supposed to be talking about addressing insecurity, building infrastructure in Nigeria. But you take trillions of naira, talking about “humanitarian.” If you’re spending trillions on insecurity, trillions on defence, trillions on humanitarian aid, then it means you are already anticipating the tragedy. You’ve kept money ready, waiting for it to happen, so that when it does, you carry “humanitarian” and go.
We should be ashamed of ourselves. Our humanitarian effort should not be about distributing rice—it should be about preventing the killing in the first place. And even those who claim to be distributing rice, whom have they given it to? The people are already dead.
In my view, they should merge the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs with the Ministry of Defence, because that ministry, to me, is a corruption pipeline. You cannot account for the money in that ministry, just to buy rice?
One injustice is that this bulk purchase of rice has worsened the cost of rice in the market. The government brings out N2 billion, N3 billion, N10 billion to mop up rice from the market—rice that you and I are supposed to buy to eat. They store it somewhere, not for safety, but to give to politicians. Not that the government is mopping rice from farms.
If you take N70 billion and go into the market to mop up rice across different states, you’re already creating artificial scarcity. Instead, take that N70 billion and invest it in agriculture. Go to the farms. We have so many ungoverned spaces. Promote farming. Let us see the rice coming from Nigerian farms, not from the same markets we all depend on.
So for me, there’s a lot that’s wrong with how these humanitarian efforts are being carried out. We need to reject that model.
There are predictions that the PDP will collapse in the next six months. What is your comment on that?
What do you mean? As far as I’m concerned, and as a lawmaker, the PDP can only collapse on one condition: if INEC comes out tomorrow and says it has deregistered the party. That’s when the PDP will collapse.
But, as of now, INEC has not deregistered the PDP. So, why do you say that the party has collapsed? The PDP is still here. It has its constitution, it has its offices, it has governors, and it has members. I’m a card-carrying member of the PDP. So, how has it collapsed?
