Sir, you have gone virtually around the 17 LGA of the state, based on those tours what do you figure out and what do we expect as the outcome of the tour?
Yilwatda: the essence of this tour is to ensure collaboration and create synergy among people of different positions. The center also is to bring consensus among all the members of the party as an entity. Today we have achieved that aim because aggrieved members are reconciled and also at the center, I mean the nucleus of the party were been able to raise people from the rural communities so that at the grassroot, that is the polling units we have a consensus that our members are intact. At the Local Government are the same thing. The few issues that we have at the grassroot all have reconcile at the course of this tour, and that has make a positive for us the APC to go to the campaign to aggregate the party to a single entity.
Whenever the Government is exiting for the party in power we have this level of synergy, unity, this focus positive energy for the party to at least achieve certain things and that is what we seek to do!
Okay Sir, definitely in this tour there is some grey areas, may be some people have raised some issues whereby they need attention. How soon will you attend to those areas of course and resolved them before 2023?
Yilwatda: that is the reason why we took our time not to constitute the campaign team until all issues are resolved. And at the course of these tour we have seem different interest groups, we talked about diversity of Plateau in terms of tribes, in terms of religion, in terms of age category, in terms of gender, in terms of physical participation. We want to make sure that those diversities that are exist in the state are covered.
And in the midst of all this discussion we had with people some times you look at the local, because politics is local. We don’t have issues at the center. We have local issues and local challenges. We must reflect and address those issues before we constitute our campaign council which we are going to do.
There are also people that we need to talk to them more. And there are people we need to bring them back to the fore from opposition. In the course of the tour we also found out that there are people who joined us from PDP in our different Local Government, and we’re preparing for a welcome for them. When the campaign is open we will go back again to ensure we brought them back to the party. But above all is for us to also reconcile the members that are aggrieved or have different issues. When we went to Pankshin LGA all the 12 coordinators of Labour Party have left the Party and these are the kind of collaboration we want within the party from other Local Governments. And non of the key actors of the party moved to Labour Party, all the key actors across all the Local Government are still within the party and to me this is a good news in the APC rather than having people move who are very significant, some are commissioners, some are speakers, some are strong members who are campaign for other political Party members to join us. This is very positive for us because for every one person to lost for APC we have more than tries from other political parties who are working with Nentawe.
Sir are you trying to change the political narrative of Plateau State. Because some politicians believed during or before elections they stay in Jos, even though with stakeholders and send money but you went deep into the rural areas and communities what is the rationale behind that?
Yilwatda: well, if you check out right from the day I was contesting my primaries election I based my campaign on issues. I want to reach out to the people, I want to create a social revolution in the state where people come to believe on ideology so that, coming to believe in me an ideology is gradually going to form a Government that is ideologically based so that people would hold me responsible for the ideologies that I have been telling them they should believed in. So that is what we want to do so that we create that social movement within the state so that people would now come in to believe irrespective of their tribes, irrespective of their religion, irrespective of their beliefs, irrespective of their faith, irrespective of their creeds let them know that humanity is above and that is what we are preaching, humanity is above our tribal sentiments and our religious sentiments.
And we have lay down or pin down that as a major focus of our campaign, and the rural communities must get to hear us and that is why we get to the polling units to talk to people and we did not finish. We are still going back to seat with people and our intention is that we are going to hold a town hall meeting where we will address tribal leaders, difference social groups and we will ensure that every facets of the society is capture in the course of moving to hold town hall meetings with Local Governments.Town hall would now be a place where we sale our agenda to the people. And now we’re talking to the party members.
The next movement is to talk to the people about our agenda. What we stand for, what we do, what we have done and what we intend to do. So these are the things we want Plateau people to believe in and I think for me like I said every day we are making a new narrative on the Plateau. We are making significance changes on how politics should be and we said our politics is non violent. And we keep on repeating it that we would run a non violent campaign, we run an inclusive campaign and you could see that from the approach we are doing. You don’t saw us discuss or insult others in the course of our campaigns. We discussed ideas, we discussed data and we’re not about what other political parties are doing but we are selling our ideas to the people so that people will believe in us.
So, that is what the focus is. Sale our ideas to the people to get to believe what we are doing and get Plateau people to also have political ideology. And I am sure after this election the practice of ideology in politics would change.
Okay sir, some people and voters on the Plateau said they would go for Dr. Nentawe but when it comes to presidency they have other options. What is your response on this?
Yilwatda: well, politics is about trying to talk to the people and you recall in all this discussion we talked with our members to believe in voting APC as a party and every other candidates. I should have password for the APC on the Plateau so if people are saying they would vote me is already a good omen for APC on the Plateau. It means that the other actors cannot capitalize in present and my big presence on the Plateau so that we can sale the other candidates to the people of Plateau State.
Well, we have already started what the Mr President said of what the APC stand for, and he has similarity of what I intend to do in Plateau State with what he intend to do at the National level. He said he will address security and he mentioned in specific terms how he intend to address insecurity. He said he wants to address economy and he said he wants to industrialize Nigeria. You know these are principal things that I keyed and I want to do. And he has reduced this bogus 10 points agenda, 15 point agenda, 30 point agenda and then he narrow everything to four. I am doing the five points agenda and the president has four. We are having the same range and it simply means that it is easier to be able to understand what we have stand for and the president is more specific on what he intend to do. He keep on saying any time when you want to look at the antecedents.
He was the Governor of Lagos state, and he is the father of APC in Lagos state and has he given a fair chance, and he is a Muslim and the Governor he brought after him was a Muslim too, Fashola, after that he brought a Christian and this present Governor is also Christian which means consistently he has created inclusive environment in Lagos state. That is one.
As Governor of Lagos state, he brought commissioners from other states across Nigeria. He brought Igbos, he brought Northerners, he brought Westerners, he brought people from all the Yoruba States who became Commissioners including the vice President who is from Ogun state but he made to be commissioner in Lagos state. He created environment where everybody will come to Lagos state regardless of where you are coming from to strive to the park of your life. What Tinubu did in Lagos is almost like America. You can come to Lagos, aspire to become the Governor of Lagos without being an indigene of Lagos state and that is what he has created in Lagos state, and I think to me that is what we need in Nigeria right now at park where everybody is suspicious, where everybody is don’t believe in any body again, we just become like champion of tribal sentiments, religious or groups.
Having somebody like Tinubu will give an all inclusive leadership to everybody. He will ensure that all the religion, tribes and groups prosper and get to their park in Nigeria. I think for me it values more to campaign for Bola Tinubu because I am the minority in Northern Nigeria and sometimes we feel left out in the scheme of things at the central government. And I feel that kind of person who have demonstrated capacity to create all an inclusive environment not only within the state nor, he went outside the state and brought people almost across tribes and religion in Nigeria to participate in governance of Lagos state based on their credibility. To me this are the kind of leaders we need.
Sir people are saying your Party (APC) have abysmally performed poor in the last 7 years. What do you have to say?
Yilwatda: you know people want to discuss about performance, you discuss viz as viz references. In 2019, in Plateau State here every where on the Plateau is having check points every where across and also in 2015 there was check points. There was no week on the Plateau that were no attack.
I recall people around Barkin Ladi and Riyom Local Government Areas every day there was demonstration on the check points accusing the military and the Government of having hands in the killings of their sons and daughters on the Plateau. Today we don’t have that kind of demonstration. All Churches, people are not admired to go and participate in the night activities because bombs was opt the society for almost every day but today we don’t have those bomb blast across the state.
In 2015, it was mere impossible for you to even moving in the night you know from Pankshin coming down to Jos because be sure sometimes you even see attack by terrorists or bandits along the way today we don’t have such experience again. So when you want to weigh them, we have to weigh them based on the previous experience. But have you achieve what is the best and we said No. But have we improved and I said yes!
You know between 2015 and 2022, look at the road across the country, I travel to Portharcourt, Enugu and coming over to Nssuka, the road from Portharcourt going to Akwa Ibom or Calabar they will fixed within this time. The one from Keffi heading towards Makodi all of them were built within this regime, railway from Lagos to Ibadan, the one from Owerri up to Kogi all of them were built under this administration. So when your talking about infrastructure we not had it better than now in terms of infrastructural improvement. Is that sufficient I said No! But is there an improvement I said yes there is an improvement.Do we have other areas that we have not done well as a party I said yes we need to work much more on the economy and improved the quality of our economy!
And I think the reason why I keep on saying this is because if you also check the previous Government, if Nigerian economy has improve is because the cost of petroleum in the international market has improved. When the cost of petroleum drops the growth domestic product ,GDP, also drop and also Dollars and Naira seems drop because we keep on seen the money economy that is built only around petroleum. In addressing and diversifying the economy is very key and hoping this Government that has tried in terms of agriculture is because rice has become in this period, and weeds and other things have come up within this period, and cocoa has been strive back again in the Southern part of the country but we can do better, we can improve on them. So, diversification of the economy is going to be key, that is why even here on the Plateau we are going to work on the diversification of economy.
Nigeria has witnessed it’s 62 Independent anniversary what is your take?
Yilwatda: in 1960 we have our National flag and our population is not up to 50million but today we have about or over 200million population are now living in Nigeria. And for me population wise we have improved.
In 1960 we have only one University in Nigeria and today we have over one hundred Universities in Nigeria. Qualitatively we have improved in terms of education in Nigeria. In 1960 there was only one road network on the Plateau here, only one road network that connected Plateau to Jos, now we have many road network connected several parts of Plateau State. And in 1960 we have no single PhD holder and master’s degree in Plateau State here, today we have Professors. And I can go on and on to mention numerous number of people who have succeeded in terms of education qualification and other fields of endeavour. You know these are quantitative improvement and in some areas we have qualitative experience. And there are people we need to appreciates.
Also, in 1960 there were number of people that were killed by diseases such as; polio and other diseases, child killer diseases across Nigeria and is one of the reasons why we don’t have a good population growth within that period. Today is history we fight killer diseases of children in Nigeria.
In 1960 we have no single hospital on the Plateau, today we have several hospital on the Plateau. We don’t had them on time because of basic diseases across Nigeria and all this things has reduced. In 1960 we don’t have single airport in Nigeria, only the Kano that is on air street and today we have several airports across the country.
Nigeria has improved to an extent of quantity of people, in terms of quantity of amenities, in terms of quality of services that we have. Basic water across communities, power and roads has been distributes across the rural communities, health has been accessible by people, more people have been involved into the health net of the country. These are actually some of the things that has improved in the country. But can we say that was sufficient?
When you want to look at the GDP per capita in 1960 and GDP per capita now is drop, and when you want to look at in terms of level of corruption in 1960 and level of corruption now is dropped. And look at the level of patriotism of Nigeria in 1960 and level of patriotism in Nigeria now we have dropped. And now there are areas that were dropped and there are those areas we are trying to improve and what do we do as a country? This is the time to reunified ourselves as a nation. We’re ranked as lowest because our ideology embedded on religion and ethnic sentiments. Beside from envy across the world, apart from the USA and Dubai, United Arab Emirates there are countries that are built around non religious and non tribal approach to governance and they provide room for every body around the world to come and operates.
Most people that are doing business in Dubai are mostly not from Arab and the Asians, mostly are the Indians and other parts of the world and China that usually come to do business in there and the same thing with the America. So why do celebrate the people that go to America and have a lot to do in Nigeria?Why can’t we made use of the same opportunity in Nigeria? And my stand always is that we can made Nigeria better!
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