We read with consternation and total disbelief a news item in both the social and traditional media of Senator Jonah David Jang, pleading with President Muhammadu Buhari to grant pardon to his predecessor, Senator Joshua Chibi Dariye, the former two – term Executive Governor of Plateau State.
He made the so-called plea at a local football tournament sponsored by one of his lackeys, Senator Istifanus Gyang at the Rwang Pam Stadium, Jos on Sunday. Hear him, ” It is time for us as Plateau people to speak with one voice, so I am pleading with Mr President Muhammadu Buhari to grant our son, Senator Joshua Dariye pardon so that he can come and join us”
For the avoidance of doubt, this call is as laughable as it is preposterous and belated. It can simply be ignored as it is a grand excursion in deception.
If we may ask, what qualifies Senator Jonah Jang whose eight – year tenure as governor of Plateau state remains the most divisive in its history to plead for the release of Senator Dariye who remains till date the people’s governor but who Jang sees till tomorrow as his number one enemy? Is he really in a position to talk about the unity of Plateau people considering his obvious reckless and divisive tendencies and policies which left the state more scattered than any time in its history?
More questions, why has Jang suddenly realised the need to plead for Dariye’s release now? This, is an after thought which to us amounts to mere shedding of crocodile tears and seeking for unnecessary attention and playing to the gallery. It smacks in a way as self pity as he has a date with history as we shall expatriate later in this piece.
To straighten the records, Senator Joshua Chibi Dariye is fully aware of all those responsible for his present travails. Does Jang think that Dariye is ignorant that in the course of his desperation to govern Plateau state since 1999, he used his military connection to get former President Olusegun and other top retired military officers and willing tools in the legislature to impose a state of emergency on his administration in 2004?
When this failed to curtail Dariye’s surging popularity and capacity to install his successor, Jonah Jang as one of the major architects of the attempts to checkmate Dariye embarked on his bizzare, condemnable and most unpopular impeachment by six out of 24 members of the Plateau State House of Assembly which was upturned by the Supreme Court as a nullify.
Is Senator Jonah Jang living in self delusion that Dariye and the people of Plateau State are oblivious of the humongous N900 million he spent on the Alajana commission of inquiry to nail Dariye even after he had left office but which was again nullified by the courts?
Senator Jonah Jang and his co- travellers equally masterminded the Abuja Federal High Court trials of Dariye which well known to him.
No true lover would have worked so relentlessly to undo all the worthy legacies of Chief Joshua Chibi Dariye as Jonah Jang did. For no explicable reasons, he closed down the Plateau State University, PLASU Bokkos set up by the Dariye administration to admit the growing number of students from our secondary schools who could not all be admitted by the University of Jos which is a federal institution. He equally demonstrated hatred for the College of Agriculture, Garkawa and the College of Remedial Studies Kurgwi also established by Dariye by lack of proper funding and other forms of negligence. If not for the governor Simon Lalong intervention in these institutions, PLASU would not have graduated any students more than 10 years since its Inception. The College of Agriculture was almost comatose until the Lalong intervention which had most of its courses accredited.
At the slightest opportunity, Jang would cast aspersion on the Joshua Dariye administration as corrupt. But today, Jang stands in the eye of the public as the grand master of corruption. He allegedly siphoned a whooping N6 billion from the State Universal Basic Education Board, SUBEB and another N2 billion from the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency, SMEDAN meant to alleviate the plight of the poor and less privileged, both which nemesis have caught up with him as he is presently being prosecuted by the EFCC. He is known to have devised all means including nocturnal and dubious ones to stall the trial which has been assigned to another judge following the retirement from service of the no – nonsense and upright Justice Daniel Longji.
The day of reckoning is lurking at the corner for Jonah Jang in spite of his pretentious righteous than though indignation. This man who calls himself a pastor is anything but real. He has all the traits of treachery and vindictiveness as his hallmark.
Let a spade be called a spade. The truth must be told that that Senator Jonah Jang is the least qualified to call for a grant of pardon to his predecessor, Joshua Chibi Dariye whom he hates with a passion. You cannot undress a man in the market square in the day time and go back in the mid night to ask for forgiveness.
What Jang has simply done through his call for a grant of pardon to Dariye is a media hype aimed at pulling the wool across the eyes of Plateau people. But the people cannot be that cheaply deceived by his rantings and antics. If Jang is genuine in his claims why has it taken him three long years to make such appeal after he has served half way into jail term which Jang will go down in history as one of the unseen hands of his jailers.
While Dariye as a true Christian has accepted in good faith his fate, a day shall come, now or later, when the evil done to man by man will not go unpunished. If it is not punished by man, then certainly by God, for the triumph of evil over good is temporal. This Jang and his co – conspirators ought to know.
SIGNED
Plateau Patriots Against Injustice
