Labaran Maku was former Deputy governor of Nasarawa State, former Minister of Information and Defence under PDP, former National Secretary of APGA and governorship aspirant of PDP. He spoke with journalists on his political voyage and why Nasarawa has remained underdeveloped. MYKEUZENDU was there for The AUTHORITY.

What pushed you out of PDP and why have you decided to come back.

You will recollect that we joined this party in its formation stage when this republic was founded, other than that, we have worked for this party in my home state of Nasarawa.

In 1999 I was appointed the Commissioner for information and sports, then two years later I was re-appointed commissioner of information and internal affairs in Nasarawa, that was from 1999 to 2003.

In 2003, I was elected together with my former boss, Alh. Abdullahi Adamu as deputy governor of Nasarawa where I served until 2007.

In 2007 I vied for the office of the governor and the structure of the party was behind me but God gave it to Aliyu Akwe Doma of blessed memory

What happened in our party when I vied for the governorship in 2015, some tricks took place, and I believe, I wouldn’t say I am the one sabotaged but I think the party was sabotaged such that the PDP will not win the governorship election. I then wrote to this party to look into my case, nobody even replied to my protest, there was not even a reply to call me to say, sorry we have seen your protest about the way the primaries were held and manipulations that took place, they didn’t even respond. So at that stage I had to test my ground to see whether it was lack of popularity or acceptance by the people; so I went to APGA and  I contested the election under the platform of APGA in 2015 and defeated Tanko Amakura roundly, everybody knows, I defeated him completely in 10 out of 13 local governments.

We were just waiting for the results to be announced when they brought a different result and announced to the nation and I pursued that up to the Supreme Court, unfortunately justice was not served but I accepted my fate.

In 2019 again, I contested under APGA in Nasarawa state as you know and everybody knows the result, APGA really won that election but it was manipulated to stop me from fighting.

Why did this take place, because majority of the stakeholders were in PDP, so I was like alone in APGA. Each time I won they will seize my results because there was no strong stakeholders at the grassroots to defend the results.

And since then there has been lots of appeals by my founding party the PDP for me to return to the party. It was clear in my state that my absence in PDP really reduced the functions of the party and since I left the party, it lost the grounds we were holding and after a lot of considerations and conversations led by the state working committee and my friends and associates all over Nigeria, I returned to the PDP.

So I am back home in PDP, not because APGA is bad, APGA offered me the opportunity to continue our struggles but I am back to this party, it is a brother platform, it is a bigger platform, it is a national platform.

And since PDP left, the state derailed completely, Nasarawa state derailed, a peaceful state descended into violence, insecurity because of high level mismanagement of resources and opportunities that would have projected Nasarawa state forward. 

How can you assess the performance of non PDP government in Nasarawa.

Our state is rich in resources, one of the richest states in this country today but unfortunately now the poorest, can you see the contradiction of the richest person being the poorest person because of lack of initiative and wisdom and capacity to harness what we have.

We need to bring back the state, unite the state across board, bring unity back to our people, bring peace back to our people, reorder the institutions of government to bring about development in the state and bring experience back to governance because what we have had is that people who are least prepared for governance have been placed with the responsibility that is beyond them.

When people are promoted beyond their capacity, the end result is what you have; those governing the state really never had any serious experience in governance.

Your former boss was elected the national chairman of the APC and the state has an incumbent APC governor. How are you going to challenge them.

The incumbent factor in Nigeria is driven by election rigging. It’s not driven by performance. Government prefer to rig an election rather than win election.

 In terms of performance, I can tell you very clearly that I don’t know about others but in Nasarawa state, incumbency will be a major disadvantage now because incumbency means you hare performed and the people love what you have done.

Once a sitting government has not performed the incumbency becomes a disadvantage. And I think that is where we are in Nasarawa.

 And I know that if God gives us a chance and these elections are free and fair, you will see that this factor of incumbency, as far as Nasarawa is concerned is a disadvantage because there is no performance.

So incumbency in Nasarawa in 2023, will really be at our own advantage, where people can see the government can see the incompetence, can see lack of performance, and then there’ll be no reason for them not to vote a current opposition party, led by the people who are experienced to address the problems of the state.

There was local government election in Nasarawa State last year and the result was so bad for the government that they abandoned the ballot papers that they went and wrote a different results. 

 So right now from that, LG election, it is very clear that PDP is on top in  nassarawa state and now that we’re all together, it is even going to be worse for the government in the next election. 

Insecurity is another challenge in the country. How can you tackle this menace.

All citizens must be involved, all leaders must be involved at different levels and I have been a stakeholder in this. As a former commissioner and deputy governor, I was very pivotal to the resolution of the crisis under my boss between 2001 and 2002 when we had some disturbances, I was in the committee that brought peace back to the state, I was the only commissioner that served in that committee.

I was also at the Kuru conference in 2001 organised by President Obasanjo to bring peace to north central Nigeria.

At the national level, I was also in all the committees for peace. So I believe I am in a position to bring peace back to our state by offering proper leadership, good governance, connecting with leaders, traditional leaders, community leaders, professional leaders across board to see that we are able to bring peace to our state. 

Nasarawa state is regarded as one of the poorest states in the country. Are you going to borrow to realise these dreams.

Nasarawa state is one of the richest in agriculture, it has one of the most fertile lands for agricultural production in Nigeria.

Government needs to go down and set up commodity companies driven by the private sector so that we will be able to connect directly with farmers; give them seedlings, give them inputs and buy their crops in commercial quantities and pay them enough for the efforts they put in and then use that money to begin to start cottage industry, process and resell.

From here to Akwanga is the land that we can use to create alternative city, that we can use to reduce the pressure on Abuja and plan that environment to generate a lot of income for the people of Nasarawa state and for Nigeria.

Apart from lip service, nothing is being done to harness this prime land to generate income, that is richer than gold. If you develop that land properly, it will generate the kind of revenue Ogun state benefited from Lagos. Ogun state is one of the richest states in terms of revenue generation because it plans and catches on the population of Lagos, sets up planned industrial park, most of the industries having Lagos addresses  are in Ogun state and I expect that most of the industries serving this capital should come from Nasarawa state.

Even the market they commissioned last year, Mararaba market, we built that market, completed it in 2001 and allocated stores before I became deputy governor, they repainted and renamed it and it is not even working as I am talking to you. This is the gross level of incompetence that we are discussing about.

I can tell you also that Nasarawa state is rich in solid minerals, one of the richest states. There is some development in Nasarawa state now which intelligence has informed me concerning Nasarawa state which I don’t want to be the one to announce it.

As it is today, I think that given the riches in Nasarawa state, in solid minerals, in agriculture, in the advantage that we have proximity with Abuja, we need to be able to do something to raise revenues and development for Nasarawa state.