Posted by By YINKA FABOWALE on
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, Chief Godwin Daboh Adzuana, has appealed to feuding fellow Benue State compatriots, Senate President, David Mark and Vice Chairman, Arewa consultative Forum (ACF), Senator Joseph Waku, to sheathe their swords in the on-going media war between them in the interest of their home state.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, Chief Godwin Daboh Adzuana, has appealed to feuding fellow Benue State compatriots, Senate President, David Mark and Vice Chairman, Arewa consultative Forum (ACF), Senator Joseph Waku, to sheathe their swords in the on-going media war between them in the interest of their home state.
His entreaty, he said, was also to prevent the Senate presidency slot slipping from their beloved state, in the event that the battle persisted.
There have been brick-bats between the two gladiators following an allegation by Senator Waku that Mark was trying to frustrate proceedings at the election petition tribunal hearing a case challenging his (Mark) election as senator in order to become acting president in the likelihood of the presidential election tribunal nullifying the election of President Umaru Yar'Adua.
The office of the Senate president had fired back at the weekend with a diatribe, describing Waku as a 'dehydrated" man of low educational worth, suffering from hallucination.
The ex-senator in a riposte featured in the Daily Sun edition of Wednesday took exception to the insult and threatened to spill the beans on the 'dark secrets of Mark."
But pleading with both parties in an interview with Daily Sun midweek, Daboh said Benue State would be the loser if they did not immediately embrace peace.
'We have had a rare privilege and opportunity of producing three Senate president, Iyorchia Ayu, Ameh Ebute and now David Mark. I am saying if Benue loses this opportunity, it will take another 62 years for our indigenes, to have it again, because it will go to other geo-political zones, before it comes back to the North Central again," Daboh noted.
Worse still, he said, there was no guarantee that Benue would be allowed to produce the occupier of the office even if the slot was retained in the North Central zone.
Describing the two leaders as his in-laws, the politician charged: 'I beg them. They must not constitute themselves into an obstacle to the short and long term progress of the people of Benue State. We should stop playing circus show to entertain Nigerians."
Asserting that Waku, who, he said had been his close associate from childhood, had no personal grudge with Mark, Daboh said he suspected that the ACF boss was merely fighting Senator George Akume's battle against Mark.
Akume lost the Senate presidency to Mark.
He added: 'If you say you have the secrets of someone, there is no perfect human being anywhere in the world. All of us have our faults. But if you carry out a comparison, the good aspects of David Mark are more than the negative ones.
'Mark is not a murderer, so what is the secrets Waku has on him? You may say he is a womanizer, all of us are womanizers. I myself, ‘am a retired womanizer. I know a lot of people in Benue, especially from the Idoma-speaking area, are against Mark. But these are all failed and expired politicians who are no longer relevant in the politics of Benue State, but they must realize that it is God that gives power. Akume and Mark fought to be Senate president, but Mark won, although he was not as rich as Akume, so we should accept that."
Daboh stressed that even if the election tribunal upturned the election of the Senate president, he would still win, 'because most of us will still ensure that he wins."
He said he had already spoken on phone with Waku, who is holidaying in the United States on the need to cease fire, while also reaching out to the Senate president on the futility of smear campaign in the media.