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| Senator Diket Plang. Source: Pang's Facebook Gallery |
Very early from graduation, he
opted to be in politics, becoming a counsellor representing one of those words
from Pankshin South. He eventually rose to coordinate the National Poverty Alleviation
Programme under Joshua Dariye, who was the Governor of Plateau State between
1999 and 2007. During the Jonah Jang administration as the Governor of Plateau
State, Senator Plang became an adviser to the Governor on Inter-Governmental
Matters. That was when I knew him, following an interview he granted me while I
worked actively as a journalist at the time. During the second tenure of the
Jang administration, he successfully contested for the state assembly and won. In
the eight years of Simon Lalong, he went into hibernation. At the end of it, he
bounced back, this time as a Senator. He
taught us that patience is a powerful weapon in political strategy.
Obviously, there is something magical
about his political life, given that he comes from a marginal tribe in
Pankshin, where the Ngas are the largest tribe –our political culture is
largely driven by sympathy to people with whom we share a common ancestry or religion.
We cannot forget too easily that we are in the era of the Muslim-Muslim tag.
So, what is the secret blueprint
he has used to stay relevant all these decades? It is obviously, his
generosity. I was prompted to write this after listening to what he had done to
people in his constituency by given out one thousand bags of rice to folks at
the bottom of the economic hierarchy. Roughly, that amounts to about one
hundred million naira, a largesse one can describe as staggering!
There was a time, early in
Plang’s senatorial incumbency. It was when he was invited to inspect the
Nigerian Institute of Mining and Geosciences in Jos with the intention of
helping with a bill seeking to make the institute a university. I went there and watched as he was been taken
round the institute. I thought it was a
near-impossible task, but the man eventually delivered, a restatement of his laser-sharp
political wit.
This big-heartedness has been the
recipe to his unvarying political victories. His detractors say that he has
been succeeding by bribing the people with generosity. Anything wrong with
that? –politics is about irritability to
the troubles of the people, helping the people to accomplish their individual
and shared dreams.
Having became a Senator, there
is just one rung atop the latter that he hasn’t attained. It is the position of
a governor. Unfortunately, when he ends his tenure as a senator (assuming he
winds the second tenure) it will be the turn of Northern Plateau to present the
candidates. That is if we stick to the agreement which merely comes from our convictions
that power should rotate. It is not a clause in the constitution and anything
can happen. From his antecedents, it is dangerous to underestimate what the
Senator is capable of actualizing.
