… So, Jerry Useni wants to be governor

By Joseph Edgar…

I heard this piece of news yesterday from a colleague but did not dwell on it until I now happened on it in a news report. The respected retired General and serving Senator in a letter to a member of the National Assembly was quoted as saying that he had received the endorsement of a wide spectrum of the people of Plateau state in this his ambition and as such he would be throwing his hat into the ring.

This for me compounds the sadness I feel each time I think of the Nigerian project. We have been inundated with leaders without vision, leaders who rather than see the opportunity of office as a platform for shallow minded policies which do nothing but to continue to impoverish the people. This announcement, if true, provides the people plateau with a front seat in the continuous comedy of errors that has been our collective lot as Nigerians.
One would have not really been bothered about this ambition, after all it is his right as a true born patriotic Nigerian who had served the country dutifully in various capacities, but the strategic importance of the Benue Plateau belt makes this whole scenario cringe worthy.

Read also: Hate Speech Bill; Issues And Concerns

That area has been identified for some time now as the major fault lines that if not carefully handled would lead to the violent breakup of the country. International intelligence agencies have been singing this into our ears for the past ten years and with the situation in that axis, they do not seem to have gotten it wrong.

The zone is a hotbed of violent interactions between various groupings who seem to have the unquenchable need to totally eradicate each other. So the Fulani Herdsmen are on a rampage, Christians and Muslims are fighting it off and the terrorists principally of the Boko Haram sect joining the mix, make that sector a boiling cauldron of violence leading to wanton death. So, for a retired General whose track in public service leaves the observer with a lump in the throat to suddenly decide that at the twilight of his years on earth that he would want to govern that region makes me just want to further cry for this nation.

Senator Useni is older than the oldest governor – Ajimobi at 68. He is even older than the President, General Buhari and he is of frail health lacking in charisma and really has never been known as a visionary type even in his ‘jerry boy’’ hey days. So this misadventure in power should be immediately nipped in the bud otherwise, it would serve to distract a true search for quality leadership in that region.

This leads me to look once again at the dearth in leadership potentials of our youths who would rather remain in the anonymous ambits of social media to postulate and throw up all sorts of theories without even owning a PVC. To fill these voids, grandfathers like General Useni would now step up instead of resting and nestling within the ambits of their grandchildren telling them folk tales of era gone by.

And even when our youths decide to come out, they do it so half-heartedly that it is easy to brush them off.

Let me state one point, the Benue Plateau basin is not one for gerontocratic games. It is not a retirement home for convalescing elder statesmen. It is a very strategic part and the food basket of the country. It needs decisive leadership, leadership that would weld all the contending forces into a union that would bring peace into this country. That region holds the North and South of the country together and provides the mediatory roll in national angst. It can only continue to play this role with a much more purposeful leadership and not Jerry Boy. I am sorry.

 

RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears

Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now