By Idang Alibi
“Plateau state has been the victim of the worst negative publicity in the country. We are portrayed as a people who take delight in killing ourselves for no reason. And we are also portrayed as a state where positive development is not taking place except violence and insecurity. I have always held my peace praying that one day I will be vindicated. Your coming here to inspect my projects and to see things for ourselves in Plateau is that my day of vindication for which I have waited for so long”.
This is Plateau State Governor Jonah D. Jang, who in an emotion-laded voice, spoke those opening words while welcoming members of the National Good Governance Tour team led by Information minister Labaran Maku who had gone to pay him a courtesy call in Government House, Rayfield, Jos last Wednesday October 24. The packed hall went silent when Jang uttered those words because members of the team and other members of the audience who listened to Jang nodded vigorously and sympathetically with him in silent agreement that what he was saying was to a large extent very true. Plateau has, since the outbreak of the internecine communal conflict that has bedevilled the capital city for a decade now, become a victim of a most vicious publicity which has cast it in very bad light.
As a result of this bad publicity, Plateau has lost its pride of place as the number one tourism destination in the country. Also, many who used to take their children to elite schools in the serene environment of Jos and environs have withdrawn them from such schools. What is more, some who wish to retire and settle in Jos have reconsidered their plan. Above all, there seems to be a most vicious campaign of disinvestment or what financial services sector people call de-marketing against the Plateau. Some federal government institutions and agencies located in Jos are seeking to relocate from the state to neighbouring states in the name of fear of insecurity and violence. Jang sounded particularly pained that the zonal headquarters of the Central Bank of Nigeria sited in Jos has been moved to Bauchi. He elicited some grunts of sad laughter when he said that on a number of occasions he has had to go to Abuja to shout when he hears rumours of certain federal agencies trying to leave.
The plight of Plateau is very a good example of the saying that bad news travels faster than good news and that negative publicity, especially a sustained one, tends to overshadow whatever positive thing that is being done. The harm that plateau has suffered bears out more the second saying that the negative has tremendous power to overshadow the positive. I say so because members of the Good Governance Tour team who had in the previous two days inspected many of the development projects either initiated or inherited and completed by Jang were unanimous that the bad publicity Plateau has been receiving as a result of the crisis has terribly undermined, if not completely overshadowed, the tremendous development strides that has been made in Plateau under Jang in the past five years.
Minister Maku has been preaching a very important message which neither the media nor Nigerians in general do seem to be heeding. He has always maintained that even in places where real wars are going on, people still carry on with their normal day-to-day activities, marrying, burying their dead and engaging in their means of livelihood and governments carry on with development activities. And that the time has come for Nigerians to begin to focus squarely on development and focus less on the negatives: squabbles among politicians, inter-ethnic or communal strife, the Boko Haram insurgency and all such non-positives which have tended to divert our attention from the main issues of national growth and development. What the team saw in Plateau with our two pairs of naked eyes is a vindication of Mr. Maku.
As a witness of truth, I want to state on my honour that in spite of the crisis on the plateau, real development efforts have been made and are still being made under the obviously able leadership of Governor Jang.
There is more good news from Jang and from the Plateau than bad. Contrary to popular thinking arising from media portraiture, Plateau is not enveloped in a climate of fear, tension, violence and unproductivity. There is trouble in the Plateau, no doubt about it. But people are also living as normal a life as possible and under the leadership provided by Jang, their lives are being improved upon. This is seen in the sheer number of development projects that were on ground.
From what we have seen on the ground, Jang has shown that he is a thinker, a builder, a leader, a motivator and a man of honesty and integrity who deals honestly with the money of Plateau state and who cares deeply for his people. Jang’s development projects are so numerous (and they are also evenly spread) that the only way to do justice to him is to simply list them and not try to explain the potential or real impact of each of them at any length. But, to my mind, four are outstanding and demand some little expatiation.
 One of them is the 44, 000-capacity FIFA-rated Jos stadium project which Jang inherited from previous administrations. Although yet to be completed, the main bowl is fully completed with artificial grass and tartan tracks for athletics. The beauty of this portion of the project can make anyone wants to become an athlete or sportsman.
There is also the Agriculture Services and Training Centre (ASTC) in Vom-Kassa and in each of the other two senatorial districts. Manned by the Israelis, the ASTC initiative is said to have so far trained about 50, 00 local and aspiring young farmers in modern knowledge and practice of agriculture. With this ASTC, agricultural revolution is in the offing in Plateau. This is a most intelligent way of inculcating the type of knowledge that is vital for development. It equips farmers with skills for a smooth a transition from poor traditional agric practises to a more modern and more productive one. The nation should copy this example from Jang and Plateau.
There are also Jang’s roads spread across the state. All of them are solidly built and not shoddily done aimed at creating another contract season as is unfortunately the tradition among some chief executives.
Jang’s effort to provide water for his people is also to be commended. All his projects, except one, in my view the gigantic new Government House under construction, are pro-people and pro-development. They have helped to improve the quality of life in Plateau and the people of Plateau have every cause to be thankful to God that they have Jang as their governor doing what he is doing.