By: Monday Danladi, Bauchi
Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 8th Assembly, Rt Hon Yakubu Dogara has been warned not to let his inflated ego ruin his blossoming political career which he got on a plater of gold as a young man.
The assertion was made by the immediate past Chairman of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which is in power in Bauchi State, Hamza Koshe Akuyam in a statement his personality signed titled: Bala Vs Wike: Because I Am Involved, A Reply to Yakubu Dogara, made available to Journalists in Bauchi on Monday.
He stated that Dogara has an inflated ego and acting as the Cart dragging the Horse stating that,”One of Dogara’s undoing in politics has to do with his inflated ego. Otherwise, Dogara would not have hijacked what was clearly a pragmatic response by the Bauchi elite for a winning coalition, into a personal project. That is why he had no qualms taking personal credit for Wike’s role; that is why he claims, without evidence, that Bala Mohammed had no money to run the elections.”
He also asserted that Yakubu Dogara’s claim that Nyesom Wike influenced the appointment of Chief Dan Orbih to conduct the Bauchi governorship primaries in 2018 with a view to favouring Senator Bala Mohammed is as tenuous as it is debatable.
Hamza Koshe Akuyam wrote that: “Let me start by averring that, as Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), in Bauchi State from 2016 to 2024, I can claim with all modesty, to have an institutional memory of most, if not all that transpired with respect to the jostle for position and power in the state, during that period.”
According to him,”In particular, by virtue of that position, I was a central actor in the process of not only producing the candidate of our party but also the conduct of the general elections at which our candidate, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed emerged victorious.”
The former PDP Chairman stated that,”It is against that background, that I intervene, to fill the wide gaps and dismiss the wild inconsistencies and falsehoods contained in the release titled: Gov. Bala vs HE Wike: Let the Truth Be Told by the Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 8th Assembly.”
“Actually, my initial reaction was to ignore Dogara’s diatribe for two reasons. For one, anybody with a passing knowledge of Dogara’s hatred for Bala Mohammed and incurable envy will quickly dismiss his intervention as the jaundiced position of a predictable and implacable ingrate. For another, my attitude to such infantile and scurrilous vituperations is to guard against providing our detractors with the fuel to burn down the party,”he explained.
He stressed that,”In spite of that, there comes a time when falsehood has to be addressed squarely, lest the toga of truth be conferred on it because people like me chose to be silent. To paraphrase the globally acclaimed Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, if we hear only a single story about an individual or a country, we could become victims of a critical misunderstanding. The purpose of this write up is to give the other side of the story from my inside knowledge of what transpired.”
On the Wike Connection, Hamza Koshe Akuyam stated that,”Yes, in the course of the consultations and permutations leading to the primaries which involved many stakeholders, on one occasion, Dogara and I had gone to Wike’s House in Asokoro where we met with Dan Orbih. It was there that Dan Orbih informed us that he was being posted to Bauchi to conduct the primaries. Senator Bala Mohammed was not present.”
According to him, “To therefore paint a picture of Bala Mohammed as a grovelling persona non grata, who was in dire need of deliverance by Wike, can only be a product of the jaundiced imagination of Yakubu Dogara. I challenge him to get his so-called witnesses to debunk my ‘other side’ of the story.”
According to him,”Dogara was economical with the truth when he claimed that Bala Mohammed could not have secured nomination or won the election without Wike’s influence. Of course, it will be wrong to dismiss the contribution of a serving Governor of Wike’s status at the time just as to do the same to Bala Mohammed and his colleagues will be wrong.”
“However, as the person who chaired and funded the congresses that brought the State EXCO of the PDP to power in 2016, Bala Mohammed had acquired substantial political goodwill, IOUs so to say, to claim the loyalty of members of the party executive. It therefore amounts to a gratuitous insult for Dogara, who was not a member of the PDP at the time, and who did not know who did what, to pontificate on issues that were clearly beyond his purview,”he added.
The former PDP Chairman added that,”I can say authoritatively that we conducted the freest primaries. If he is in doubt, he can ask Senators Abdul Ningi and Adamu Gumba, who ran against Bala Mohammed. It is instructive to note that these gentlemen remain some of Bala Mohammed’s most reliable allies in the unprecedented developmental strides recorded so far by the current PDP-led Administration in the state.”
According to him,”Yet, is it not a contradiction that with all his so-called influence, even as the No. 4 man in the country at the time, Dogara could not muster the influence to clinch the APC nomination that could have returned him to the House of Representatives.”
He also stated that,”How convenient it is for Dogara to have forgotten so soon that he had been chased out of the APC by then Governor Mohammed Abubakar and that, it was in the face of that crushing humiliation that Bala Mohammed and the PDP gave him the face saving ticket thereby kick-starting the collaboration between him and Bala Mohammed on the one hand and between the two and other stakeholders on the other hand.”
“Dogara could not have forgotten so soon how, in my company, Governor Bala secured the withdrawal of the other aspirants for him, in line with the consensus arrangement that was aimed at eliminating the rancour that could have arisen from primaries,” he added.
Hamza Koshe Akuyam added that,”It is sad that Dogara for whom Bala Mohammed went to great lengths to rehabilitate after he was decisively and, in retrospect, deservedly subdued by the APC in Bauchi State would, against all canons of decency have the moral fibre to shamelessly impugn the integrity of his rescuer. For crying out loud, how could Yakubu Dogara have forgotten so soon that it was to revive his destroyed image and restore his bruised ego that Bala Mohammed magnanimously acceded to his plea, to change the flag-off of the PDP campaign to Bununu in his Tafawa Balewa Local Government instead of Gamawa LGA that was initially slated for the launch . To wit, that rally was funded hundred percent by Bala Mohammed, not by Dogara. In addition, that was the only place that Dogara attended our rally till we won the election.”
On the choice of Bala Mohammed as the Gubernatorial Candidate of the PDP for the 2019 general Election in Bauchi State, he narrated that,”As people of Dogara’s profession would say, if you stand something on nothing, it will collapse. It would be akin to erecting a building without a foundation. Thus, a recap of the circumstances that culminated in Bala Mohammed’s emergence will debunk much of the premise of the falsehood that Dogara has cleverly put together to mislead the public.”
“I want to start by admitting that the major parties in Bauchi State had thrown up many eligible candidates. Perhaps Dogara need be reminded that it was an elite consensus, at the time, to identify the one, among the candidates, with a combination or all or some of the following qualities,” he added.
The qualities according to him included the best chance of being sold to the public: electability, paraded a demonstrable track record of contributions to the physical, socio-economic and human capital development of the state, possessed the resources to partly sustain a governorship campaign, possessed integrity and who, in the face of the opposition, could stand tall.
Other qualities were, a career profile steeped in governance and national recognition and who, through a deftly cultivated pedigree, could be trusted to, once again, mainstream Bauchi State into the centrestage of national politics (after the brilliant outing of Ahmed Muazu?) and the upbringing and demeanour to deepen democracy in the state.
He stressed that, “After a rigorous and painstaking scrutiny, the lot fell on Senator Bala Mohammed. This fact was made public by no less a person than Yakubu Dogara himself during a reception for Governor Bala Mohammed by his counsel and personal friend, the legal giant, Chief Chris Uche, SAN at his Maitama residence after his Supreme Court victory. That Dogara has conveniently forgotten, so soon, speaks to either a case amnesia or deliberate mischief. Either way, the prevarications and grotesque somersault of such a man makes it a very great risk to trust his testimony, (the danger of a single story!).”
He stressed that, In retrospect, “we are glad that we chose Bala Mohammed. I make this point to dismiss the insinuation that we booked a political featherweight. No. The choice of Bala Mohammed from among many qualified contenders was deliberate, painstaking and targeted. The choice was that of a political heavyweight, a quintessential technocrat, a nationalist and legislative icon with an indelible legacy of national service and a community man who, despite the demands of federal service, was never far away from his Bauchi home base. The social capital he established was to translate to unassailable political capital in the 2019 and subsequent elections.”
That Bala Mohammed has been Ungrateful to Wike, he stated that, “The evidence does not support Dogara’s claim. In fact, I can say without fear of contradiction that Bala Mohammed always regarded Wike as a friend and consistently demonstrated that. Without the bonds of friendship, Governor Bala Mohammed would not have joined him in the G6 movement after the convention that produced the presidential candidate of the party.”
According to him,”It was when he realised that Wike had other objectives outside ensuring that all stakeholders were carried along that he (Bala Mohammed) opted out of what had been turned into a circus. Secondly, it was in a deliberate attempt to ensure that Wike’s ego was not bruised that Governor Mohammed scuttled a well orchestrated plot that could have succeeded in removing the Acting Chairman of the party, Ambassador Iliya Damagun at of the NEC meetings of the party.”
“Furthermore, members of the PDPGF of which Bala Mohammed is the chairman have always couched every resolution on the Rivers State crisis in such conciliatory tones designed to give Wike a soft landing. Yet, Wike would not bulge,” he added.
Hamza Koshe Akuyam added that,”If Bala Mohammed is the aggressor, an ingrate, as Dogara would want the world to believe, are former President Jonathan, former First Lady, Dr. Patience Jonathan, former Rivers State Governor and elder statesman Dr. Peter Odili, retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Justice Mary Odili, former Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former Senate President, Senator John Mbata, Senator Lee Maeba, former National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Uche Secondus and others, who God used to elevate Wike to his present day status also ingrates?”
He stressed,”Let me reiterate that the ongoing disagreement between Governor Bala Mohammed and Nyesom Wike, Minister of the FCT, marks a major watershed that, to borrow Dogara’s perspective, revolves around whether personal friendship should take precedence over constitutionality, whether arbitrariness should supplant order, whether what is good for the goose should not be sauce for the gander.”
According to him,”Contrary to Dogara’s false narrative, from my close interaction with him, all through his illustrious public service, Governor Bala Mohammed has consistently trodden the honourable path of insisting on doing what is right for the party and the country. Bala Mohammed maintains the noble perspective that democracy can only survive when it is driven by strong institutions and not strong individuals.”
He stressed that,”Bala Mohammed’s crime, in the eyes of Wike, is his principled position that the constitution of the country and the conventions of the party be upheld despite, no matter whose ox is gored, a position that is maintained by his colleagues on the PDPGF, going by the communique that they have consistently issued.”
He also stated that,”Dogara, in spite of all his pontifications and hallucinations, cannot see that this is the substantive issue, not personal friendship, is not only disturbing but shameful.”
In his word on Dogara, the former PDP Chairman stated that, “I still shudder that Dogara has refused to grow out of his reputation as a serial opportunist, whose rise to prominence depended more on zoning and other contingent factors than the possession of any solid track record of national service prior to being elected to the National Assembly.”
According to him,” Who knows, since he has always seen Wike as a ‘money miss road’, his ‘mugu’ who spends Rivers money recklessly without caring to know who the beneficiary is, he is probably positioning himself to extract more, this time, from the FCT which is the collective patrimony of all Nigerians.”
“Mr. ‘Do Good’, Dogara, would like the world to believe that his intervention is borne out of altruism, as a good man who would not standby and watch the deconstruction of a power megalomaniac whose cavalier disrespect for everyone, every institution, and the valiant icons without whose sacrifices Nigeria would have been a story forgotten. What a shame,”he added.
He further stated that,”Yet, when issues that affect the majority of Nigerians, whom he pretends to defend arise, Dogara is either nowhere to be seen or emerges on the wrong side of history, siding with the oppressors. Where was Dogara during the EndSARs and EndBadGovernance protests? On whose side was Dogara when the obnoxious tax reforms were being forced down the throats of Nigerians, something that many patriots had cried out, could have choked millions of people to death.”
According to him,”The answer is simple: the Hoi polloi, unlike Wike, lacked the fiduciary capacity to satisfy the former speaker’s gluttonous pecuniary appetite. For a man like Dogara who providentially, had catapulted to political prominence at a very young age, it is sad to see him squander a promising career on the altar of self conceit and serial inconsistency. ”
Hamza Koshe Akuyam concluded stressing that,”Because I am involved, I am constrained to make the submission that, if Dogara does not retrace his steps, very soon, like his new paymaster, he will begin to disparage everyone he sees on the street. That will be a grotesque anticlimax to what people had once hoped would be a promising career.”