Plateau state 2023 Governorship aspirant Dr. Patrick Dakum says human populations should be seen as platforms for self-help, not oppression.

“If you are majority, let us see it in how well you are able to help your community not how well you are able to dominate and oppress others,” Dakum, a former Director General, Institute of Human Virology, Abuja, said on Tuesday.

Every majority group, Dakum said in a press conference in Jos, is minority in another community, “a reason we should not brag about our population but how much we can achieve as a people,” he said.

In his words, “Anytime I hear about minority and majority in Plateau, I think about the fact that when I go to Abuja, the entire Plateau is minority.

“Each time we gather in Abuja, the politics of minority and majority is not as we look at it here. The politics is about Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba. So when someone talks about minority or majority, I ask in what context?

“I task those that claim majority – how have you been able to use your population to help yourselves? Let us see how many vulnerable children have you been able to help? Since you are many, let us see how many community schools you have built for your people. If you have been able to do that, we clap for you.”

Dakum lashed politicians for siting developmental projects based on votes earned from communities, advocating “development according to needs”.

He said, “People naturally have the tendency to think that if we are majority, we should get majority allocations. And some politicians will say let me site projects in communities based on the votes I got. Okay so imagine, there is already a general hospital in Pankshin. So because they give me plenty votes I should go and site another hospital in Pankshin? It does not make sense.

“We should do development according to needs not according to population. If majority have a need for five schools, whether they are majority or not, we should give them five schools. If it’s a smaller community needing two schools, why should we site five schools there because you are Governor and you come from there?

“Does hunger know majority or minority? When you talk about the daily needs of life, do you talk about majority or minority? When you go to the local school and they are sending children home for not paying school fees, is it the children of minority or majority that will be affected?

“The earlier we begin to see ourselves as brothers, working together to remove the hunger in our land, the better for us.”

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2023-Governorship aspirant throws big challenge for majorities in Plateau