Our People Believe Strongly That Groups External to Plateau Want to Take Over the Land’ – Ambassador Sheni, PIDAN President

Ambassador Danjuma Sheni is the President of the Plateau Initiative for the Development and Advancement of the Natives (PIDAN). In this interview with NICK YASHI, the diplomat cum businessman spoke on the over 20 years of crises on the Plateau and the recipe for lasting peace. EXCERPTS.

• By way of introduction, we would like you to tell us what the association (PIDAN) is all about?

Well, thank you very much. It's good to have you with me this afternoon. PIDAN simply means the Plateau Initiative for the Development and Advancement of the Natives. It actually constitutes 58 ethnic nationalities on the Plateau; what we call the autochthones—the ethnic natives of Plateau State. It's an association that has been in existence now for over 10 years, going into 15 to 18 years in existence. The objectives of the association, as the name suggests, is to advance and promote the interest of what we want to call the indigenous people of Plateau—the natives.

We have 58 registered nationalities in the Plateau. It came into being because of certain peculiarities that the people of Plateau had. First of all, within the context of Nigeria, they are a minority. Therefore it became necessary to bring all these ethnic nationalities together to promote peace, to promote development, to promote unity, to promote harmony. Having said that, the focus originally was to protect even our cultural heritage. Culture identifies the people and therefore it was very important, and this is in line with the several UN resolutions on the need to protect the cultural heritage of our people. So those were the ideas.

Increasingly and because of the security challenges, PIDAN began to have a more forceful voice. And in this context, I want to acknowledge my predecessors, who did an extremely good job by recording first, the history of Plateau State. They have written books on this, and they have also in my view successfully put the various conflicts within Plateau State in proper perspective. There's a book on the origin and ownership of Jos and the subsequent crisis for the world to know. So that is, in short, the background of PIDAN.

Today, PIDAN stands strongly for the interests of Plateau generally, and that is why, again, we must acknowledge, particularly this government, which has fully noted and acknowledged the role of PIDAN. You would notice that PIDAN has been involved in various committees that have been set by government, particularly those on mineral resources, on security, and even now I'm just coming back from a meeting on Plateau at 50. So in a nutshell, that is what we are doing.

• Okay! The association has existed for 10 years. So what are the achievements of the association so far, and also the challenges that you are facing?

One of the major achievements is the consciousness that PIDAN has brought on the people of Plateau State, telling them, for instance that we are one people. I am from Langtang for instance and in terms of crisis, I want the Tarok man to know that if there is a crisis in Tarok land, every other minority, every other ethnic nationality on the Plateau, should recognize that there is a challenge and that is what we are doing for all of our communities. So that consciousness is there.

Two, we have tried to unite our people, not just in terms of conflicts, but to let them know we are one people. We should promote our culture. Our cultural heritage is extremely important for us and the generations to come. And then I just mentioned to you our predecessors. Professor Gomwalk, Professor Madaji; they did a lot of writings putting in perspective several aspects of developments on the Plateau. I just returned from a meeting on the 50th anniversary of Plateau State and there are books that have been written by PIDAN. They are now being used as reference points.

They also developed one very important concept, equity in governance, which means that us as a body want to ensure that there is equity in the distribution of offices and development projects should be equitably done. And that is why this government, PIDAN certainly put in a lot of pressure when the Speaker and the governor were from the same zone. We told them, look, Your Excellency, you have to look at this. And I'm happy that was recognized. The Speakership has moved to the southern zone. The governorship is in the central zone. The Deputy is in the northern zone. We have also emphasized on appointments. You cannot, because you are governor, be so partial that you put most of the strategy or almost all from your ethnic nationality. So that, I think, has sold very, very well.

There's still a lot of work to be done. Our people, because of poverty, because of hardship, because of security challenges, our people still need to be talked to. How do we as Plateau State citizens, how do we interact and ensure these crises are brought to a stop? We have appeared in too many interviews and all that. Only last week, I had to order a release about the frequency and tendency of our people to block Federal Highways whenever there is a crisis and then attack people that happen to be passing through Plateau State. That is a terrible, terrible development, and we as peace-loving people of Plateau State should not be simply doing that. Like I said, that would not address the root causes of the crises we have and then it portrays Plateau in extremely bad light. So all these things we are doing, and I say a lot of work is still left to be done.

There's the issue of poverty. Plateau is one of the poorest states in Nigeria, and we are working closely with the government. How do you address the strategic needs of people, in terms of food, in terms of employment? For instance, we're focusing on our youth. So we bring fresh ideas to the government.

In terms of challenges, there are many, even the resources to go about this is not there. Because we do not want to be an appendage of any government. We ensure that our resources, our financial resources, are not completely from government. He who pays…you know what they say. So we try as much as possible so that we meet with the governor. We can be able to tell him the truth about how we feel and how people feel. So finances have been one of the major challenges of PIDAN. And of course, apart from that, we need to sensitize our people more. A lot of them actually do not know the existence of PIDAN. In every of our meetings, I told you our council, the highest body, is a council made up of the President and Secretary of these 58 ethnic nationalities. That becomes, like our Congress, the highest body. We emphasize to them the need for them to drive the knowledge about PIDAN down to their level.

There are many projects. There's the issue of gender equality, that PIDAN and the gender commission is trying to push through. Right now in this country, the Supreme Court has already ruled that in terms of property and rights, you cannot discriminate against women. But that is more a cultural thing in most societies, including mine. For instance, I'm talking about the Tarok nation. They have practices that tend to keep females and widows or wives out of property inheritance. That is our next item.

Yes, so we have issues of lack of adequate resources, even sensitization on the role and nature of PIDAN. But I think with time we would get to overcome.

• Of recent, the state experienced a resurgence of insecurity which actually led to loss of lives and properties. As an association of ethnic nationalities, how has this problem contributed or posed as a setback to the peace being enjoyed?

Thank you for that question. Every single society can only develop when there is peace. Plateau State, since 2000-2001 has been facing a lot of crises. To be fair, so is Nigeria as a whole. I mean, Plateau State is not an isolation within the northern states. Now there's hardly any state that is not facing one crisis or the other, including even Gombe. So that has been a big, big challenge for us.

We have been participating in peace initiatives. So many have gone to Abuja, talking peace. The governor recently set up a committee to look into root causes. The Major General Nicholas commission. We were all there and we talked to them about the need to stem this crisis in the bud and what are the major issues involved? Land. Our people believe strongly that there are groups of people, external to Plateau State, who want to take over the land of our people. That is a belief. And increasingly, you would see those kinds of practices in place, especially now that we are going into the raining season. So what does that do? Keep our people out of their farmlands. You can't go and farm when people are fighting and all that. And so there's a need. It's a need really.

And we have had so many peace commissions that I don't know what else to do. We have had so many peace commissions and talked about peace. Whenever I attend a peace meeting, my first question to the audience, including everybody there, particularly our platform is, are you really interested in peace? Do we want to achieve peace on the Plateau? If there is an acknowledgement that yes, we want peace, then if you want peace, it follows that you cannot continue to do the things you did yesterday that resulted in crisis, and say you want peace, it means that you have acknowledged that certain things we did yesterday, we have to abandon them and do things freshly.

What do I mean? But the easiest, I always say is, look at our religious people: the kind of preaching they undertake in their various worship centers. If you hear the preaching, and I'm talking about not just one religion, but the two major religions, you would hear preachings of hatred; that cannot bring peace to any community. So we need to work, first and foremost, on ourselves. Also, we have poverty, lack of jobs. If youths are very busy in the working places, where do you get them to go and create crisis for you? So we need to look at that.

We have a long way to go. Unfortunately for Plateau State and all other states, the governors do not have any executive powers over the security forces. The governor cannot, in real sense, order the police or the army to do this and do that. Maybe, with the proposed creation of State police, that would be a different game entirely.

• Okay, so specifically, the aggressors of the prolonged crises now, are believed to be the Fulanis, at least from the perspective of almost all the ethnic groups in the State. And of course, the issue of land is at the heart of the problem. So what, in your own view can be done to deal with the problem?

Actually, I am from the southern part of Plateau, where we do not have this kind of crisis in this proportion currently. Mark my word carefully, in this proportion, and we have Fulanis there. One of the things I say is that, even amongst the Fulani, they have come to distinguish that. They say, we have been living with you for years. That is, we don't know this new entrance of Fulanis from all over. They are new, and they are the ones causing this problem. We have been living with the Fulanis for years and generations. We need to know that. We meet with them, and they tell us, look, yes, they are not saying there are no Fulanis. But because of climate change and because we have porous borders, they migrate and they are predominantly the major attackers, because they are looking for land. They are looking for places to graze their animals. So we have that.

On the other part, we also have what I want to call beneficiaries of crisis. There are, unfortunately, our own people whose stock in trade is to ensure the crisis does not end. They are merchants of crisis. They are beneficiaries of crisis. And how do they do that? And that is why I started by referring you to the southern zone. What we did in the southern zone, generally speaking is what we call domestic housekeeping. You cannot rustle cows and bring it to our community. Stringent questions will be asked and stringent measures will be taken. You have no cattle today, tomorrow, you then have 50. So we need to look internally. Who are those rustling these cattle? From my own experience, anybody who brings rustled cattle to our zone, his family will deal with him first of all, before even the general public.

So it is not a simple question. We meet MACBAN, we meet with them, and they tell us they are not the ones. They are as surprised as we are, so we need to look into that closely.

• Finally sir, what ways or measures can we adopt in order to resolve the over 20 years of crisis on the Plateau?

A big one. First of all, I'm a diplomat for 35 years. I became an ambassador and worked in various countries. I eventually became a federal permanent secretary and worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense. I am giving you this background to let you know that in terms of insecurity, I have sufficient background to talk about it. You know that the primary responsibility of any government is the security of lives and property. Any government that is unable to perform, stands the risk of a loss of confidence. In proper democracies, those governments will be voted out.

So having said that, there are some major things all of us must collectively do. Like in other parts of the world, security is everybody's business. I hope you understand. And that is why abroad, if you see something, you say something because the hard forces, meaning soldiers, policemen and all others rely substantially on information from all of us. Every Plateau man has the responsibility of taking his security into his own hands by ensuring that they collect and pass correct information.

The second stage is, of course, capacity building for security forces. While leaders, diplomats, politicians talk, they need to put more boots on the ground. And like I said, with the state police coming into being, we hope it will also be another layer. But ultimately, the question remains, do we want to have peace? Do others really want Plateau to live in peace? So I tell Plateau citizens, we have a higher responsibility to ensure Plateau is peaceful. The Fulanis that we talked about, they don't have as much responsibility as you and I to ensure Plateau remains peaceful. So the primary responsibility is actually on us. Keep your ears and eyes open and of course, the worst case scenario, which is allowed by our Constitution, is self defense.

I tell people, look, if somebody comes to your house to attack, the Nigerian Constitution allows you to fight back. Let's not mince words. You cannot come and attack people continuously and expect them not to respond.

So to answer your question, we shall continue talking and preaching peace, and we appeal to our leaders—religious, traditional, political—to ensure that the words that come out of their mouth are about the need to live together. The State capital is now almost divided into two, with Muslims living in one portion and Christians on the other side, almost like Kaduna State. This is not the Plateau we grew up in. So we must collectively work on that. That's my take on that.