Jonah David Jang

Jonah David Jang CON (born 13 March 1944) is a Nigerian military officer and politician who served as the senator representing the Plateau North senatorial district from 2015 to 2019. He previously served as the governor of Plateau State from 2007 to 2015, and as military governor of Benue and Gongola States.

In 2015, Jang ran and won the Plateau North senatorial district seat as his term as governor drew to a close. In 2018, Jang declared his senate seat vacant and said it was time for the people of Plateau North to decide who would represent them at the red chamber. Jang was at the time making a nocturnal political consultations to run for the presidential ticket of the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 presidential election.

He was a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party in the days that preceded the second military to civilian transfer of power in 1999 ushering the Nigerian Fourth Republic.

In the new millennium democratic dispensation for which Jang had so much fought to wrest power from the military, he made an unsuccessful run for the governorship of Plateau State in an election which was marred by alleged forms of irregularities and malpractices on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party. Initially, he had sought the PDP governorship nomination prior in 1999 but lost after which he decamped to the opposition ANPP to make yet another run for governorship again that was to prove futile. According to an ally James Vwi, Jang was already considering and making a series of consultations on running for the Nigerian Senate to represent Plateau North senatorial district shortly before his opportune moment came. He was able to craft a powerful alliance with a number of political big wigs while mobilising an incredible amount of funds and put up a fight in the Plateau PDP gubernatorial primary election of 2006 which he won.

Jang is a native Berom and is a proponent of massive infrastructural development. During his tenure as Governor of Plateau State, some of his achievements included: road construction through the length and breadth of the state, rehabilitation of public water supply, agricultural partnership program between the state and Israeli experts (ASTC) and in environmental sanitation to mention a few. As Governor, Jang embarked on a thorough purge of the Plateau State Civil Service ridding it of unwanted corrupt elements mostly in the form of ghost workers. He is regarded by many as having recorded achievements comparable only to those of the very first Governor of the state, Police Commissioner Joseph Gomwalk. He has a lot of experience in military and security matters which owes to his prudent management of the Tiv/Jukun crisis during his tenure as Military Governor of the old Gongola State.

In a trial widely dismissed as a political witch hunt, Jang was in 2018 arraigned in the Plateau State High Court of justice, Jos by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over allegations of fraud to the tune of 6.3 billion naira of Plateau State funds when he was Governor of the state.

While the citizenry having enjoyed a period of relative plenty and stability from May 2007 to May 2015 when Jang handed over the reins of power, contended the credibility of the trial, on 16 May 2018 he was remanded in Jos prison after his application for bail was declined by the court.

On 28 August 2018 Jang formally declared his interest to run for president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at the Plateau State PDP secretariat.