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Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State
By Bitrus Ajang
Why is Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong always prone to unguarded and poorly thought out public speeches?
Ordinarily, Lalong looks a jolly good and harmless fellow for the promotion of public peace and harmony.
He likes speaking unprepared at the slightest opportunity and usually ending up drawing a lot of opprobrium on his person for careless talks.
Claiming he has restored peace to Plateau State upon assumption of office as governor, hear him speak;
- “I have appointed a Hausa- Fulani as a commmisioner in Plateau State , something no government has done in the past and this action has ushered in lasting peace on the Plateau.”
First, this is not true, every government has always appointed ‘Hausafulani ‘ chaps in that capacity since the creation of the state.
It is also false that peace has returned to the state, in fact lack of peace has significantly worsened in his tenure.
Again that pubic statement by the governor was most unnecessary and poorly thought out.
- “I warned my colleague and brother, Governor Ortom not to sign the anti-open grazing bill because there will be severe consequences.
“Now he is burying close to a hundred of his people because of that mistake despite my warning.
Lalong was smiling triumphantly in front of the cameras while making this sacrilegious and satanic speech in the presidential villa.
Again, this public statement was most inappropriate, unnecessary and very mean.
He was supposed to be in Makurdi as a co-mourner in line with African tradition and not going to the Villa to make a mockery of this scandalous human disaster that had befallen his own people .
- The governor made another chilling gaffe when over a hundred plateau people were murdered in their villages by armed terrorist herders.
Below is his nauseating, lunatic, dubious comment that is fraught with fabricated lies on television to the people.
“It is not only the herders that carry arms and kill people. Even the indigenous farmers also carry guns and have been causing trouble also!!!
So it is a case of two fighting and there are really no terrorist attacks on Plateau villages!!!
Instead of consoling and sympathizing with the people for this horrendous human calamity, he was accusing them of being trouble makers.
- On another occasion talking on television on the issue of open grazing and grazing routes, Lalong again said:
“Even the government house at little Rayfield .Jos where I as governor live with my family, is sitting on a grazing route.” What a gaffe!
Rayfield is an ancestral land of the native Berom people who have lived on this prime land for over a thousand years even before the colonists thought of coming to Africa.
The Nigerian state is barely a hundred years old and how could Rayfield land from nowhere come to be on a grazing route for a land inhabitated by natives for hundreds of years.
Again, Lalong did not need to make that unnecessary public statement.
- At the height of his power intoxication he once said:
“Before we came on board, Northern Nigeria was disunited, divided and devastated by terrorism and was economically finished.
Since I assumed the chair of the Northern Governors Forum, our northern region is now more united, safer, progressive, economically more buoyant and insecurity is a thing of the past!
Again, he did not need to make such public comments on the state of the North, knowing the North under Buhari’s watch and Plateau State under him is a waste and wasted land and most of the people displaced from their homelands are living as refugees elsewhere .
- Just recently he committed the mother of all blunders where again there was no need to talk.
Giving reasons why he accepted to serve as the Director General of the Tinubu-Shetima campaign, he said;
“Even the Pope (the internationally highly revered Catholic Pontiff) is not against my accepting to serve as head of the Tinubu/Shettima Muslim-Muslim ticket campaign council”
Meaning in simple terms that the Pope endorsed his acceptance to serve in that capacity.
What a blasphemy and sacrilege, dragging the name of Papa Roma into mundane and pedestrian local internal politics of a country.
That was most unwarranted, reckless, insensitive and irresponsible and least expected from a Papal knight, which he boastfully claimed to be.
Without doubt, Lalong has unknowingly nailed the coffin of the Tinubu presidential ambition with a finality by his blasphemy.
The Catholic church as a highly respected institution that has been around over two thousand years does not dabble into local politics of nations.
The Catholic church generally encourages its faithfuls world wide to vote according to their conscience (devoid of religious, ethnic or racial) sentiments in line with their local peculiarities in furtherance of the Catholic church’s doctrine and position as the universal church and taking all of humanity irrespective of race or faith is its domain and area of interest and concern.
The teeming number of Catholics and other christian faithful in Nigeria isn’t taking this nonsense from Lalong lying a political low. Lalong has recklessly and carelessly crossed the the red line.
The Catholic church as an institution has not taken lightly to the uncharitable insult on the office/name of the Pope.
In swift reactions, some groups within the church immediately took a swipe at the governor called for his suspension from the church for his blasphemy and being a perennial sellout to the enemy.
They even accepted his afterthought apology and instead called on him to resign his campaign DG appointment and undergo a 49-day fast for repentance!
There are at least 50 million active Catholics in Nigeria and its sister church, the Anglican communion has about 25 million active members and most of those in the Pentecostal churches in the cities are traditionally Catholic, Anglican baptist, Methodist or other orthodox churches, etc, when they are back home
With Lalong’s unprovoked and crude insult on the Pope, most of the these christian voters are likely to keep the Tinubu presidential ticket at a very long length.
And one can therefore predict the outcome of the presidential election for Tinubu.
See what Lalong has caused Tinubu from just needless careless talks !!!!!
The handlers of governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State have to know that the governor has this inability to speak without written papers; they should never allow prowling journalists come near him no matter how tempting their questions and the situation may be .
This is the price this potentially great country is paying for allowing all manners of unprepared and incompetent characters and charlatans ascend high offices at all levels purely by chance and political accidents without any noble ideals nor agenda to offer the people.
