Untold Reasons Lalong Resigned As Minister Of Labour

Mr Simon Lalong was on Wednesday sworn in as senator to represent Plateau South Senatorial District becoming the first person in the Fourth Republic to resign as a minister to pick up a seat in the Senate.

The decision of Lalong to resign was against the grain of political behaviour that has seen several members of the National Assembly vacate their seats to take up office as minister.

Lalong’s decision was, however, prompted by political consideration to save the All Progressives Congress, APC on the plateau from the humiliation that may have followed if it lost in a bye-election.

It would be recalled that Lalong contested the Plateau South Senate seat against Senator Napoleon Bali of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP who was declared winner of the election over Lalong who was the governor of the state at the time.

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC had announced Bali as having polled 148,844 votes against Governor Lalong of APC who scored 91,674 votes while Tobias Nda of the Labour Party scored 17,325 votes.

However, Lalong went to court on the claim that the PDP did not have a structure. Despite claims to the contrary that it had a valid structure and the PDP’s claim that issues of nomination were pre-election matters not to be discussed in the tribunal as was deposed by the Supreme Court, the tribunal and the Court of Appeal upheld Lalong’s claim throwing him into the difficult position of choosing between the federal cabinet and the Senate.

Though the Court of Appeal ruled on November 7, it took the former governor more than six weeks to finally decide on vacating the cabinet.

Sources close to him revealed that two major factors played out in forcing Lalong to resign his office as minister representing Plateau State in the federal cabinet.

The first was on the need to avoid the political embarrassment of the APC again losing a bye-election in the event that Lalong chose not to take up the seat.

“If Lalong chose not to take the seat we would be faced with a dilemma of allowing the seat go to another party,” a source close to Lalong confided implying that it would have been a political embarrassment.

Another source confided that such a scenario would have exposed the APC to mockery as it would have shown that the party is not popular and can only take up elective office through controversial judicial interventions.

It would be recalled that the situation on the Plateau has raised serious concern among political stakeholders in the country given the use of pre-election issues to arbitrate on cases against the grain of the judgments pronounced by the Supreme Court.

Another consideration that has been used to sell the decision of Lalong to take up the Senate seat is the claim that he had been declared as persona non grata by organized Labour.

However, that claim is not as persuasive as pundits claim that his predecessor as minister of labour, Senator Chris Ngige was even more bellicose solidifying the claim that Lalong decision to resign had more to do with political expediency on the Plateau.

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