2015: Give us a ministerial slot and we will vote for you – Tivs tell Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan might not get the support of the Tiv ethnic group of Benue State if there’s no assurance that they would get a ministerial slot in his cabinet next year.

This condition was given on behalf of the community by one of its prominent elders, Chief Iorapuu Amile.

Amile told Punch in Gboko, Gboko Local Government Area, the traditional home of the Tiv that the only way of getting the support of the Tivs was for Jonathan to create a slot for their people in his cabinet.

He said, “The President (Jonathan) is our brother by extension since he is also a minority and the only condition that will make us vote for him in the next general election is for him to promise us a slot for a senior ministerial appointment.

“This, I believe, is not too much for him considering the numerical strength of the Tiv people as adjudged to be the fourth largest ethnic group in the country.”

The politician, who was the chairman of the defunct National Republican Convention, Gboko LG chapter, noted that it was not right for the Tiv not to have had a senior minister throughout Jonathan’s first tenure.

He said, “Let the President himself see to it that there has been a high level of political and economic injustices meted on our people throughout his first tenure and we are simply saying there must be a change for us to be with him.”

Amile declared that the marginalisation of his people had reached an “unbearable and unacceptable stage”. .

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