Al-Makura Has Performed Below 30%, As ¾ Of All Lands And Properties In Nasarawa Are Owned By Him And His Family –Nasarawa PDP

The Nasarawa PDP Chairman, a former member of the State House of Assembly Hon. Francis Orogu in this exclusive interview with universalreporters’s Ohia Israel, lambasted Governor Al-Makura, as he accused the governor of perfoming below 30%, as he added that ¾ of the lands and properties in the State are owned by the Governor and his family. He also speaks also the party’s determination wrestle power from the APC come 2019.

The Excerpt:

Having been elected Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Nasarawa State, what are your plans for the party, especially ahead of the 2019 polls, what do intend to do to wrestle power from the APC in the State?

We have begun preparations for 2019, we making development plans towards taking the party to lofty heights; we are going to use the party as a platform to the people so that they will enjoy it as it was created to be simple.

Just recently a member of your party, Hon.Sarki Tanko, was suspended, but he has come to say that he will take legal action against the party should they party refuse to lift the suspension. What is your take on this?

On the issue of the person under suspension, who has threatened to go to court, we are looking forward to see the court summon, it is a party matter nobody is afraid of anything. As far as I am concerned I didn’t suspend him. It was his ward who suspended him for anti-party activities. Though when I came to the party as a leader, I have told everybody that I do not have space for indiscipline in the party. I do not have space for pirates; neither do I have space for fifth columnist, those who will be here and they will be working for them there, those ones I said I don’t have space for them, anybody who is willing to continue in that page should leave the party or we show him the way out. I have said it not one, not two, even at the very highest authority of the party, we said it that no matter how tall a man is and he is in this party and he is not working in the interest of this party, we will show him the way out. We said that because we discovered the problem of this party is just that members are not there, is not that we are not being loved, is not that we are not in every corner of the state, we are in the heart of everybody,  but we have one major problem, which is the betrayer of trust of some members of the party.  Discipline I am here to instill which is one of my cardinal reason to succeed,  and that is where I stand. So if any of my members or our members are found wanting anywhere, we will discipline in accordance to the constitution, and if anybody feels that his right has infringed, and he feels that he can go to court, well if he has the money to pay a lawyer for the case, the other person has the money to pay for defence. So is not a big deal for the person that said he will take party to court, is not a big deal, am sure the party will take care of that if gets to that level, from what I got, he was on suspension and he was subjected to a committee to investigate him and find out if he is guilty or not according to constitution and that should have happened within one month, and then within that one month if he is found guilty you talk of either expelling him or otherwise, but the party is still in the process, and you are on suspension, suspension is not dismissal, is not expelling, it will tell you that you have been found suspicious of one thing or that the party is offended by your action, however the opportunity of the other side of the law which said you will be giving the opportunity to explain yourself through a committee is coming up, but you throw the towel in and  you insulted everybody in your letter. I wonder who is arrogant and who is rascal among the two of them, I don’t know with the response I saw in that letter, the tune of the letter is more of a rascal, or which of the letter is coming from a rascal, I don’t know. If you have seen the two letters together, read it yourself, and you will discover which of the letters is actually coming from a rascal, but that is not for me to say, because I didn’t write the letter.

The deputy speaker of the State House of Assembly who is a PDP member recently dumped your party and joined the APC, what is your reaction on this.

For him who defected to the APC, that one infact is a blessing to us, this is because he has not been a member of this party genuinely, everybody in the state knows that he has been a fifth columnist, that is why they rewarded him with the position of a deputy speaker, have you ever seen a House where person from a five minority member is made Deputy Speaker in the House of 25 or 24 where only five is from the opposition, is not always there, is not possible, is not workable. So they gave him that to pay him for the atrocities he has created in the PDP in the past. We are perceiving that he is hoping that he will be rewarded more, and that only guaranteed him that to get those reward now is to decamp to the APC, and we have been very conscious of his presence,  he knows that too, because we cannot continue to sow seed in the presence of a Guinea Fowl because we know definitely the Guinea Fowl will take it off, so it will not germinate, so we are happy that he has left, now our plans and information will be safe from leakage, we are really happy, in fact we celebrated his exit. What he should be battling for now is whether he should be battling for now is whether he has any ambition at and if he can be able to achieve it again, reason being that the zone he comes from is a zone that PDP is not threatened by any political party. This is because that is the zone we have both all our National officers are PDP, the House of Representatives members and Senators are PDP, we have House of Assembly members, we have six former Deputy Governors who are all PDP members, we have formers ministers that are PDP in that zone, we have former Senators from the same zone, we have former Local Government Chairmen whose numbers are uncountable from that zone also, we have councilors and former councilors of PDP from that zone, we have traditional leaders who are members and still members of PDP from that zone. So he should be thinking if he has any ambition at all, whether he will survive in this decision he took that’s all, for us it is not a threat, we didn’t lose anything rather it is a blessing.

One of the issue in the party reconciling aggrieved members, how do you intend to tackle this.

At the National level or the State

The State

I don’t think we have any outstanding aggrieved members, except for those who through Labaran Maku and joined APGA,  I don’t know whether to call those ones aggrieved members, because they were there even before I came into power, but then even as that I have visited most of them with my team, I have spoken with most of them, someone of them are on their way back, they are waiting for some processes, we have spoken with other leaders within us who have not been showing commitment to take responsibility and for those who are afraid of EFCC and want to save their neck, those one we cannot stop them because they are already there, they are neither here or there. Those ones they must go because if they don’t go they will be caged by the EFCC, those ones we understand with their pains, I think that is all I can tell you for now.

How focused is your party.

My party we are focused, we doing our best, we having series of meetings, on Monday we are going to have meeting with all former and present National and state legislators, subsequently I will have with meeting with former advisers, permanent Secretaries, commissioners and others. We have schedule of so many meetings, we have a lineup of so many activities and definitely I will assure you are winning election come 2019, nothing is going to stop us we are winning the election.

With you on the saddle, are you very hopeful that come 2019 your party will wrestle power from the APC.

I have said that already, we are winning election because we are going to play every game; we are going to decide the tune of the game, we are going to mobilize in a such a way that even if you are a master rigger you will come to stand still because people will resist you, no matter what you do, we are winning the election. You will see it yourself. We will be the next Donald Trump, in Nasarawa State, because people respect nothing until they see it, am assuring you that.

How can you assess the government of the day in your State?

If I have assessed them anything below 30% in performance, I wouldn’t be talking that I want to take over from them. As long as the regime now is concerned, he is only there to loot and to make himself one of the richest people in Nasarawa state, that is all I know, there is nothing  else,  he has not offered anything again, I can say maybe appreciate him in his first term when the 4^th Assembly was forcing him to do the job, but now that he has all the state for himself,  no goalkeeper, no backman, he is just looting and stealing every hour, doing nothing. So if I had scored him above 30%, I won’t be here talking about taking over from him, he is just a political waste and the  people knows it and is not a big deal, the traditional rulers are hungry, they are frustrated, the civil servants are frustrated, they are dying in silence, the hospitals are full of cleaners and messengers, no doctors, no nurses, no equipment, the streets nothing is happening anymore, no construction going on, all the construction machines are laying idle, construction companies that are there in the last four years they have all parked and gone, every local contractor have disappeared and gone except for him and his families and friends and in-laws, Nobody today in Lafia rides a clean car except him, nobody is buying properties and lands, almost ¾ of the lands and properties in Nasarawa State is owned by him and his family. So what is there that one can talk of in the present government is doing, so there is nothing new in Nasarawa State that the present Government can say or have done that will make them win 2019, you see what happened to Obama, is not a time you will come and speak and people will believe you, that is why I said that the next Trump you will see is me and my party, I will come from nowhere and the next is we are in power.