Hon. (Barr.) Solomon Selcap Dalung is a household name in Nigeria. An advocate for human rights, particularly within the context of Nigeria’s security and legal systems, Dalung was a former Minister of Youth and Sports from November 2015 to May 2019. He has served in the Nigerian Prisons Service, the University of Jos as a lecturer, and as a Special Adviser on Security to a former Governor of Plateau State, Chief Joshua Dariye. An outspoken person, he was a Chairman of Langtang South Local Government in Plateau State, where he gained significant grassroots political experience.
In this interview with the Daily NewsCraft team, Dalung spoke about his relationship with a former President, late Muhammadu Buhari, why he did not return as a minister for the second time, his decision to join the African Democratic Congress (ADC), and more. Excerpts…
You were a key member and a stakeholder of the People Democratic Party (PDP). From there, you moved to the APC, where you were made a minister. But due to politics at home, you were not returned as a minister. And there were allegations that it was due to the frayed relationship between you and Governor Lalong. How true was that? And if it’s true, what’s the relationship between you two up till now?
No, I think, people are free, under democracy, to hold opinions based on perceptions. But I think, to me as a person, I have never, in my life, anticipated to serve in any office twice because I know myself very well. I know the type of person I am. So, each time I take the oath of office, I think of leaving there the following day. The frayed relationships refer to between myself and former Governor Lalong was just a personality fusion. It’s just the fear of my personality, but there was nothing at all at stake.
He thought I was going to contest for 2019. But I went to him and I told him, “No, I’m not interested in contesting 2019 because I do not want to put the state in a further and deeper crisis.” Because when we start this, coupled with the speculations in the political space, it’s going to raise a lot of tension, and I don’t want to subject our people to that. I told him this, but he didn’t believe it.
Why do you think he did not believe it?
Because, you know, the people around him needed money. And so, each time they want money from him, they print my poster, digital, and send it to him. So, he gives them money. So, he didn’t believe it until he did not even see me contesting 2019. I did not return to the cabinet not
because of any differences with anybody, but I ran a sustained battle for four years with the cabal in the Aso Villa.
Yeah. So, don’t, don’t appropriate it to Lalong — don’t think that there was anything he did. There was nothing he could do because he tried in 2015 to prevent me from being nominated, and he failed. So, he couldn’t have succeeded in 2019. But I was not willing to surrender my reputation to be manipulated by a gang of power usurpers around the corridors of power. So, I gave them a very good fight. And when it was time for reappointment, I was vetted, I was reappointed, nominated by the President, My name only disappeared on transit.
And well, people expected me to have felt bad. But you know, I’m a God-knowing believer. So, I believe that God saved me because if I had gone back, I would not have survived that.
What makes you to think that?
Yeah. Because as the Minister of Sports, I was the most travelled. So, I would have been travelling around the world and got attacked by COVID, and I’m hypertensive. So, I could, maybe, not have survived it because of the underlying circumstances. That’s one.
Two, the battle would have been so intense that attempts which were subsequently made on the 4th January to eliminate me that failed would have been intensified. They would have improved on their strategy, and maybe, I would have not been alive now, and most of you would have gone to my village, and at the funeral oration, you know, say, “Oh, here lies a very great man.” And even those who would have killed me would have gone there and said, “Oh, Nigeria has lost a great man.” But God didn’t want me yet because it was not my time.
So, who really was against you, and why did they want you dead?
No. You know, I am somebody that I’m too good with people when it comes to the issue of principle and opinion. I don’t shift grounds, and I don’t care what you will do. I don’t mind it. So, there were things they were doing in government which included trying to even usurp the authorities of the ministers. They usurped the authorities of some ministers. They succeeded because the Minister of Health, my friend, Professor Adewale, had his budget relocated to agriculture.
There were also some behaviours. They doctored memos, sometimes, which they sent to the President.
And some ministers were afraid to challenge, but I have never allowed such things to escape. They block the ministers from advancing to the President. They did that to me, but because I’m NADECO, I used NADECO route to connect with the President. We continued from there.
So, it was. There were so many things they tried doing, and all failed. There were so many attempts in my life because, I mean, my PA Domesy, was bribed ₦10 million to pick my personal wears and hand over to them to be taken to a Marabout who promised them that I would not live 24 hours. But that was bungled.
I confronted my PA, and he confessed that, “Yeah, it’s true.”
There were even organised attacks that were targeted at my person, but I downplayed most of them because I didn’t want to send panic to Nigerians. There were even attempts to poison my drinks and food, and all those ones all failed. So, when all these failed, they became so scared of me. Some of them are not living now, but they actually knew that they had it tough with me.
So, when they had the opportunity to remove my name, they did. One of the things, I was later told by one of the PAs to the late President. He said, “On the day of the inauguration, the President was asking some of these people, ‘Why did I not come for the inauguration?’ And why did Audu Ogbe not turn up for the inauguration?'” He was asking them. But I met with Buhari at Daura, and asked him a question, and he said, “Please leave everything to God. You just leave everything to God. You have done your best for this country.” And I took his hint perfectly.
So, not coming back, to me, is the glory of God, and I thank Him that I’m still sipping a cup of tea.
You are now a key member of the African Democratic Congress (ADC). In your state, there are three factions, and you are associated with one of them. How do you feel about that, and what has been done to have that party united, particularly in Plateau State?
Well, in one of your earlier questions, you were trying to trace my political journey. Yeah, PDP, APC, ADC. Yeah. I am a founding member of PDP because I was PA to Chief Solomon Lah, and during the
struggle for the return of democracy, I was with him when June 19 was founded in Kaduna State, and later the G34, which met on my force into PDP. I’m also a founding member of APC because I left the PDP when the basic ideals with which we formed the party, especially internal democracy, were completely
abandoned for imposition and impunity. And I felt having struggled for this democracy during the military era
and even went to prison because I was detained in Jos Prison, and I met with Obasanjo. I kept saying this: the first time I met with Obasanjo in life was in Jos Prison. He was waiting for execution as a condemned convict when I was thrown into prison as a NADECO (National Democratic Coalition) element. That was the first time I saw him. So, I felt, I mean, after all the sacrifices we put into this party, and if you want to contest the election, you may win the primaries, and another person will contest the election.
So, that struggle was what made me or forced me out of PDP to APC. The APC was quite appealing because, I mean, the fundamental ideals of the party convinced some of us that if we will be able to translate it into reality, Nigeria will be a great nation.
And then looking at the personality of President Muhammadu Buhari, whom when I was a junior officer in the Security Services, he was the Head of State in 1984. And in 1984, I knew, as a fact, that before he came in, I couldn’t afford pomo, I couldn’t afford maggi, I couldn’t afford rice, I couldn’t afford sugar. I was washing my uniform with potash. And within a short span of times, things changed. So, with that youthful mentality, the mosaic charisma in him still rings. And then we believed that, look, if he
had been allowed, maybe we would not have been here.
So, motivated by this, we joined the APC. But for me, politics with Buhari pre-dated APC, and I was the only person until he died, he kept saying it, I was the only person he picked his phone and invited him, me, to come and join him in politics.
He said every other person came on his own. So, we had a covenant with him, and there were what we agreed upon.
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And part of what we agreed with Buhari was that he said, “I know you, you have a very toxic tongue. You don’t spare anybody. Please do not spare me when I am wrong.” And I didn’t spare Buhari. I will not even spare Buhari in death
because the covenant still lives.
He said, “Don’t spare me when I’m wrong.” And that is why anytime he is wrong, as a president, we face him, I face him and tell him, “Sir, this is not what we told Nigerians. We didn’t promise this to Nigerians.” Every time, the last time I saw him that I didn’t see him again, long before he passed on, I asked him whether everything that was happening in Nigeria by March 2020 was part of the manifesto we promised Nigerians. He said no.
I asked him of his security. He said, “You are aware of how terrible a security institution is?” I reviewed the security in the entire country, and he was shocked.
I took the economy, I took corruption. We are Accountant General of the Federation in one single transaction, stole 1.9 billion.
All this I told him. And at the end of the day, he’s left now. May his soul rest in peace. He appealed to me that, “Please, I should not abandon you.” But I told him, “Seeing you was not easy, and
so I know I will not see you again.” And I didn’t see him again until he died. Even when he left office, I went to Daura to see him.
Immediately, all these boys around him saw me at the Emirates Palace. When it was time to go and see the President, I went, the former president, I went to his house, they said, “Oh, he has gone to the farm.” So, I didn’t see him.
So, when he died, they were saying, “Oh, he has died.” I said, “I didn’t see him alive. Is it the dead body that I will go and celebrate?
I don’t have business going there. People do not mean well for him, so you have, you have finished with him.
What else do you need?” So, I think APC had derailed completely.
APC or ADC?
APC completely from its fundamental principles. Back to ADC, the ADC has only one structure in Plateau State.
Just like nationally, you still have people who are interested in causing destruction, parading themselves and saying, “Oh, we are this, we are that.” That you claim to be a President of Nigeria is not treason. It’s not.
But when you will take steps to exercise the power of a President, it’s treasonable. Yeah, very good. So the reports about the factions on the plateau are not correct. It has been resolved by the last Congress
that was conducted. We have an executive elect that is waiting to be… But some of them have moved to the newly formed NDC.
It was, it’s not only in Plateau that some people moved, but we are more, we are not much affected on the plateau because the way we built the party is very organic the departure of Obi and Kwankwaso to NDC, of course, for us on the plateau, we harvested the benefits more because most of the strong people from the Labour Party who came into the party did not leave. The Chairman of the Elders Council was the Chairman of the Elder Council of the Labour Party, is still in the party, former local government
chairman.
The, one of the strategic, um, in fact, some of the strategic women who are, who were, were elected as party, they are still in the party. Uh, most of the, in the local government, we have attempted to reach out, but the people insisted that they will not move as individuals.
People are going to move as a group, we move as a group. And, um, Peter Obe has actually called me and apologised.
He said he left without, um, reaching out to me because we had good relationship and good understanding, and we were working together. He had also wanted me now to come over to NDC, uh, but my constraint is that I did not join the coalition because of my personal interest.
We all agreed at the coalition meeting that we were in the coalition because of Nigeria and democracy. So, why will he leave?
What is the fear? For some of us, we know that the structures we control, we control, and in other states, these structures still think alike.