NIGERIA AT SUNSET 24th NOVEMBER 2022

**Ponsak Fanab** (0:16)
Hello there, very good evening to you, and welcome to the program, Nigeria at Sunset on J1 1.9, here in Jaws. My name is Ponsak Fanab. It's a beautiful, beautiful Thursday evening, 24th of November, 2022 Gilbert Joseph is here. Good evening, and how's it going? How are you today?

**Gilbert Joseph** (0:32)
Not bad, I'm very well, Ponsak. Thank you. Trusting that you have had a great day, even though it's been a little busy one for you.

**Ponsak Fanab** (0:40)
Roller coaster.

**Gilbert Joseph** (0:41)
Yeah, oh, all right. All right, the best way to put that.

**Ponsak Fanab** (0:44)
Yeah, it was a roller coaster, but well, again, the day has been good. Just that I receive a very sad and painful news. I would like to condole with my friend and brother, big brother actually, and a senior colleague in this profession, noble profession, Mr. Namwa Golok. He lost his father today, engineer Israel Golok. His late dad was a retired staff of the power holding company of Nigeria in Kyanjidam, Niger state. He died today in Lankton South after a brief illness. Very, very tough, painful news. Just yesterday, we were together with Namwa. So please accept our deepest, deepest condolences. May the Almighty God comfort your family, comfort you and everybody. Mr. Namwa Golok, we pray that Baba, the soul of Baba, is resting in Christ where there's always peace, eternal.
Well, Gilbert, today, I traveled to Mangu just to go and see things for myself.
The governorship candidate of the PDP today, he laid his mother to rest, the late Mama Briskilla, who passed some days ago, she was laid to rest today, in Pangwez. And I mean the crowd, you know, the crowd. And what I'm thankful for is that people who came, it's not only because of party affiliation, you know, that I can say, but people who genuinely want to empathize and sympathize, you know, with the family of the mudfungs, you know, at this tough, tough, you know, moment. And I can't imagine, you know, the kind of pain that the, that maybe he's going to feel, because I read the message, you know, on the program booklet, you know, that he wrote. He said, I mean, his pen is not flowing, and things like that. And he said, his one wish was for his mother to have leave, to see him becoming victorious, you know, in his, I mean, those were his words. It's not, you know, my word. But again, I expect that politics should have a limit to some things, Gilbert. I expect that maybe the governor, Governor Simon LaLonde should be there, because I'm a Christian, and the Bible will say that in Romans 12, 12, 12, rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. But the governor today flagged off or inaugurated his campaign council in the southern zone for his senatorial election beat in the southern, you know, part of Plateau. And I learned that he wasn't even around during the burial of the brother of De Longtel. Longtel is one of the prominent traditional rulers in Plateau state, from Mekong local government. He lost his brother, so the governor wasn't there, but he was in Shandam, Shandam and Mekong, you know, that they are very close, very, very close. So I do not know. I do not know. But I truly want to believe that there should be a limit, you know, to politics.

**Gilbert Joseph** (4:08)
Yes, you're absolutely right, from the side, there should be a limit to politics. But unfortunately, we do not have these things written in black and white to say that these are the limits, these are the red lines. This is where politics starts, that's in our country here. This is where politics starts and ends, right? And this is where morality begins, or possibly, whatever conviction anybody would have had or should have, you know, as it were. But you would expect that in the natural state of things, that every human being sympathizes and empathizes, because everybody has got a taste of death in one way or the other. Whoever you may be, and I may not know anybody from the governor's side, but for sure, in his lineage, he has, I mean, he has faced, he has had cause to face this sort of things, and possibly, if you check the lessons he would have been able to pick, the people who condoled him didn't do that, right? Along party lines, or along any sort of professional bounds that may just be existing as it were.
Honestly, honestly, he should have had his reason for, should I use the word snub, or snubbing the burial? I don't know. I don't know. And he hasn't even imagined the sort of message that his presence would have sent in this event.