By JOHN ONAH, Abuja –
Tiv Community of Nasarawa State has advised the Senior Special Assistant, SSA to Gov Abdullahi Sule, Comrade Peter Ahemba to apologize to the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN for dragging the church to dirty politics.
Addressing journalists on Thursday in Lafia, Nasarawa State Capital on behalf of the community, the leader of the group, who is a former president of the Tiv Development Association, TIDA, Mr Boniface Iffer, said “we are concerned about the Tiv Community of Nasarawa State. As a community, we are deeply worried at the current trend of events especially involving the unguarded utterances of a supposed one of us and one time president of the Tiv Development Association, TIDA, Mr Peter Ahemba who was deposed for controversial handling of affairs of TIDA and is now a Special Assistant to Gov Abdu Alhaji Sule of Nasarawa state”.
The group said Mr Ahemba was dragging the Tiv community including the church into dirty unnecessary partisan politics, which has become a major issue since last March, 2023.
The group said Mr Ahemba ought to have known how endangered the community is especially in the state politics of exclusion which bothers their coexistence in areas where they once lived peacefully with their neighbours.
“Our concern is in his electing to tow a dangerous lane, including his dragging of the Church and its clergies into dirty politics on an issue that is already in court between the parties. This is in difference to numerous calls for restraint and caution by our leaders and well-meaning individuals, including the State Security Service”.
“We, as Tiv youths, are curious to note and ask, what changed? Where was Mr Ahemba when the Sarkin Kwandere, Alhaji Ahmadu Almakura in the presence of the governor openly boasted that if APC and Sule didn’t win, even if someone else won, the winner cannot be given the mandate?”
While not attempting to speak for any political party, Mr Iffer said they are aware that throughout the campaigns, they have neither seen nor heard Dr. David Ombugadu talked about religion or exhibited tribal drums. If anything, it was the people who recalled with excitement the numerous support he had extended to markets, mosques, and churches by providing bore holes and several similar interventions.
“Therefore, for Ahemba to openly lie and churn out half-truths on the stage of development in the state and with such deception is infradignity, preposterous, and attempts to portray the TIV people as self-conceited That is a bad example, he said.
“For whatever reason, Mr Ahemba should endeavour to apologise to the church, an institution that has been helpful to the Tiv community by providing education and relief materials through their charity work.”
“How soon would Peter forget that it was this same Ahemba who was all over the news accusing Gov AA Sule’s administration for turning a blank eye while 56 Tiv locals were being killed among several others in various local government areas across the state !
Has the state government resettled Ahemba’s people who he was canvasing for them to be returned to their homes and farmlands?, He queried.
“Has the Tiv been given the chiefdom and other opportunities which the same administration promised the Tiv during the electioneering campaign, or has his recent reward and appointment as SA replaced all these?”
“Referring to Peter Ahemba’s phantom lies, we have made several consultations with critical stakeholders and we resolved that the least we demand from him is a written apology and, a quick retraction of the insulting and blackmailing comments he made in reference to the clergy which we consider as blasphemous and his unwitting attempt again to drag the Tiv nation in Nasarawa into dirty politics. Ordinarily, we would have preferred to maintain a dignified silence, but for the avoidance of doubt, Ahemba should not be seen as a representative of the Tiv people by dragging noble personalities into unnecessary disparaging for a pot of porridge just to earn a short term livelihood.
“This is what the regime in Nasarawa has done to Peter, who is riding on the blood of his Tiv brothers in Nasarawa to find food. His case is like that of Cain and the blood of Abel, or Esau trading of his inheritance, and indeed he who will stop at nothing to sell his birthright for a pot of porridge. He has lost his head as the official lier of the Government of Nasarawa state.
” He is fighting and maliciously, for that matter, peddling falsehood just to impress his pay masters. If you sell your land to buy a trumpet, on whose land will you stand to blow it? He used the killing of Tiv people in Obi, Awe, Doma, and a host of other communities in Nasarawa State to campaign for the position he is occupying today”.
“Unlike others before him, the sacked TIDA President must not bring disrepute to us just because he wants to maintain his appointment with the state government”.
“He should hasten to apologize to the well-meaning leaders of thought in the state and the Tiv Community for such display of uncultured, unguided and excessive bunch of lies and other utterances on AIT and other media platforms in recent times to avoid being totally rejected by his kinsmen as the official lier of Nasarawa state government”, he added.
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