Ombatse. How to get to the bottom of the Nasarawa killings – Senator Adokwe Our Reporter June 17, Senator Suleiman Adokwe represents Nasarawa South Senatorial District where more than 100 policemen and officers of the State Security Service (SSS) were killed. In this interview with ADETUTU FOLASADE-KOYI, the two-term lawyer turned lawmaker demands that the federal government should set up a judicial panel of enquiry to unravel the dramatis personae behind the bloodbath. Excerpts: Can you tell us what really happened between security agents and the Ombatse group last month? First and foremost, let me quickly tell you that each time these crises happen, I would be out of the country; quite a coincidence, I must say. In the first episode where they had a clash with a town, called Agbeje, I was away in The Gambia. The second time it happened this time with a government agency, I was away in the United States of America. I received information from reliable friends both in the security and opinion molding fields. From the briefing I got, the whole thing remains speculative as far as I’m concerned. So, it will be difficult for me to tell you precisely how these things started. I do know as someone who has worked in Nasarawa State since its creation; I have been in the corridors of power, first as the director (political), later as a permanent secretary, covering internal affairs and security matters. I know we have all sorts of communal clashes here and there. We started the state with the one we inherited from Plateau, which was between the Igbira and Bassa. We have had persistent clashes between Fulani herdsmen and farmers. This one of Ombatse is a completely new phenomenon; it is not the type that we are used to. We usually have individuals or families, struggling over land, which has always been resolved in the court. But this one of Ombatse is a totally new phenomenon. While on one hand the people, who belong to it claim it is a traditional religious organisation targeted at cleansing their internal society, other people see them as people who are out to entrench their hegemony over lesser groups. What I can say is that it remains mainly a communal clash. It has not degenerated to the level of sectarian or ethnic cleansing level that we witness in other jurisdictions. But I am not in any illusion at all that if it is not nipped in the bud, it will definitely go beyond what we are witnessing at the moment. Now, while the security agents claimed that they went there on an arrest mission, the community where they went to carry out the arrest claimed it was not so. But, in my own opinion, as a seasoned administrator and a lawyer, I believe that the police, 24 hours, can arrest any time. What remains is whether they can charge the person so arrested to court within the specified constitutional time-frame. So, it is immaterial whether the police went to arrest or not to arrest. Even police without uniform can arrest at any given time if they have reason to believe that a crime is being perpetrated or even out of his contemplation he felt he can stop a crime from being perpetrated. That is why we have inchoate crime, that is attempted. It gets to a point that you don’t even allow a criminal to commit a crime before you arrest him. So, the police can effect arrest at any time. As far as you are a law enforcement agent, it is the duty of the citizens to respect law enforcement agents and accord them access to execute whatever they have come to do. If they have gone there to perpetrate illegality, the law is also there to try them. So, no matter how you look at it, the act for me, is first and foremost condemnable in all its ramifications. I have no reservations about condemning that act. We have times and again also condemned excesses of the security agents. In carrying out their order, they are supposed to be mindful of the human rights of the people they arrest. If they go beyond their brief, they can be charged for abuse of human rights. But while they have not done so, any body that will prevent law enforcement agents from carrying out their lawful duty is also condemnable. Are you comfortable with the fact that 13 trucks of armed security agents went to the town to arrest just one man, the so-called chief priest of the Ombatse group? The simple logic I can give you is this: If they sent 100 policemen and they were killed, it shows that they needed more than that number. I don’t know the magnitude of the crime that the police envisaged or the magnitude of resistance they anticipated to have sent that kind of number but there are lots of claims here and there. I have been of the view that the only proper way to get to the bottom of the whole thing is to institute a judicial panel of enquiry so that anybody can go there and give testimony as to what they know and the panel will be able to sift the truth from falsehood because we have claims from both sides from the police and the man in charge of Ombatse. This is democracy and this is a free country; everybody is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. So, the proper thing, in my view, is for a judicial panel of enquiry to be instituted. I was not there; all I have heard is what you have also heard. Even if I received testimony from the Commissioner of Police or the Inspector General of Police, I believe they are subject to cross-examination to find out whether they are telling the truth or not. Similarly, if the Ombatse angle is there, you cross-examine the chief priest to know whether he is telling the truth or not. And the only way you can get to the bottom of it, in my view, is to have a judicial panel of enquiry. There is also side talk that the whole thing has to do with the 2015 election in the state. Some say the governor wants to continue in office beyond 2015 while some people are opposed to him because he had promised to stay for only one term… I’m glad you said ‘side talk’ because I don’t know about that. I’m in PDP and we are not in government in Nasarawa State. It Is CPC that is in government in my state. It is under the government of CPC that all these crises are erupting and to the best of my knowledge, statistically speaking, the ethnic group in question (Eggon) voted largely for CPC. So, if they are undermining the government of CPC, they know and it is up to the CPC governor to know how to put his house in order. It has nothing to do with the PDP. As we are speaking, PDP doesn’t have a gubernatorial candidate yet so, we don’t know how we are going to capture power back but we know that one way or another, we will win. It is CPC that has a sitting governor, who is constitutionally, may be entitled to a second term if he wants to or if he doesn’t want, he has to maybe give it any other person in CPC. So it is up to them if there is internal power struggle and strife; it is entirely their own. All we are asking is that as the governor in power, he has a fundamental duty to provide the welfare, peace and order of the state for every body to thrive. It is not our responsibility; it is the responsibility of the government in power to provide peace and security for everybody. There is also the allegation that the problem has to do with power shift in Nasarawa State. It is alleged that the Eggon people want to produce the governor come 2015… The issue of power shift in most cases is a gentleman’s agreement. There is no legality to power shift any where in our laws, constitutionally or under the Electoral Act or any of the country’s laws you can think of. It is entirely an internal arrangement and a gentleman’s agreement which sometimes, people honour and sometimes, people flout with impunity. It is not something that is justiciable any where. You cannot rely on that to begin to cause trouble in the state. I cannot speak for CPC (about) what is their internal arrangement but I know in PDP, we started with giving the governorship to the western senatorial zone. At that time in 1999, all the zones contested but eventually the western senatorial zone won under the present Senator Abdullahi Adamu. It became an unwritten understanding that governorship will go round the senatorial districts in the state. So, in 2007, under the PDP regime, only the southern and northern senatorial zones candidates contested. Nobody contested from the western senatorial zone. It became obvious that we were on the path of rotating power, as it were. PDP enjoyed that power for one term because we didn’t win the second term. CPC took over power and incidentally, the CPC governor comes from the southern senatorial zone. I don’t know if they are going to start their own power rotation from the southern senatorial zone or what; it is not my business really. But under the PDP, I know we enjoyed two terms in western senatorial zone and one term in southern senatorial zone. We probably have one more term to complete the southern senatorial zone under PDP before we shift it to the northern senatorial zone if that understanding is sustained because like I said, all these things are gentleman’s agreement, an unwritten agreement and even if it is written, it is not justiciable under our Constitution and our electoral law. Since the recent crisis in your state, has the governor called federal lawmakers to a meeting to brainstorm on the way forward? Initially, when this problem started, I have visited him more than two or three times because most of these issues are occurring in my senatorial district; the two of us come from the same senatorial district. In fact, we grew up together. As a matter of fact, from secondary school to university and till today, we are still friends. I have not had any reason not to relate with him. I call him on phone, he calls me and we share ideas. Beyond that, all the Senators and members of the House of Representatives met collectively and sat down with him and we proffered a lot of suggestions some of which he has started implementing, some of which he amended. But on this last one, we have not met collectively. Initially, the governor scheduled for a meeting but it was called off for another day. I am hopeful that he will still call us we will be able to rub minds together. Because we talked at the state level, we have not found it necessary to raise a motion on the floor of the Senate. If you can talk to someone one on one, there is no need to make it open and castigate him when you can talk to him personally, without cameras. As it is now, I believe that the problem is much bigger than what the state government can handle. We are getting to a point now that anybody can hijack that problem. That is how some of these problems like Boko Haram started. It started as small political thugs and before you know it, the problem became internationalised.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 01:05:39 +0000