The Converner, Benue Open Governance Society (BOGS), Samuel Agwa, attributes Senator George Akume’s unprecedented rise in national politics to events that occurred when Chief Gabriel Suswam, Vande-U-Tiv, was Governor of Benue State.
Chief Suswam is the successor to Senator Akume, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), who served as Benue State Governor between 1999 and 2007 under the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Chief Suswam served from 2007 to 2015 under the same party platform. Both are now members of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), a party formed in February 2013 as a result of a merger of the then Nigeria’s three largest opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) along with a breakaway faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Prior to the 2011 general election, Sen Akume defected to ACN because his kinsman, Rt. Hon Terngu Tsegba, a former Protem Speaker serving his third term in the House of Representatives, sought Akume’s Senate seat. Unsure that his seat was guaranteed in the PDP, Sen. Akume ran to the ACN, where he secured the ticket to return to the Senate after his first victory in 2007.
To Mr Agwa, if Sen Akume had remained in the PDP, he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to serve as Senate Minority Leader and a critical stakeholder when the issue of the merger to form the APC came up in 2013.
“This is how things play, unknown to many, even the very players. It was because Suswam blessed him in disguise to seek refuge elsewhere that he became the Senate Minority Leader. Don’t forget, Suswam could have used his power as an incumbent to frustrate his campaign and election, but he never did. He allowed everything flow because of the respect he had for the man. He still holds him in high regard, and even when we worked together, Suswam never spoke negatively about George Akume.
“Quite frankly, Suswam has a hand in who Akume is today. It is a mystery but a fact,” the BOGS Convener stated.
Mr Agwa noted that “today history had played, and Suswam has joined Akume in APC. Clearly, this should be a lesson to politicians that there is always a meeting or departure point in politics, and it’s just a matter of time.”
According to Mr Agwa, “there is no better opportunity than now for the much desired Benue political elite unity to play out,” concluding that even former Governor Samuel Ortom, who may be joining APC, considering he was the first Nigerian to declare support for President Tinubu, even when Tinubu’s family or close allies had not mooted any second term idea”
How well Benue will benefit from APC now or in the future will depend on the unity of purpose among Akume, Suswam and Alia, Mr Agwa opined.
