Bauchi politics and a resort to pettiness

I read with keen interest an analysis on page 40 of Daily Trust’s edition of last Tuesday and wish to enrich the debate on Bauchi politics by offering additional perspectives and supporting those already expressed by the respected newspaper. By now, the outpouring of condemnation (in both traditional and social media) that has continued to […]

I read with keen interest an analysis on page 40 of Daily Trust’s edition of last Tuesday and wish to enrich the debate on Bauchi politics by offering additional perspectives and supporting those already expressed by the respected newspaper. By now, the outpouring of condemnation (in both traditional and social media) that has continued to trail House of Reps Speaker Yakubu Dogara’s dance with the budget padding that he is being accused of, must have taught him in a practical way no history teacher could have done.
As a lawyer, Dogara knows very well that you don’t come to equity with dirty hands. Not even Robert Greene, the famous American author of the 48 Laws of Power, who advocates for creating enemies to achieve selfish ends will endorse the amateurism and double-speak that have dogged Dogara’s efforts to fend off attention from the budget padding matter that he, to the shock of a bewildered nation, claimed is not a crime.
To the thinking of Dogara and his team of spin-doctors, accusing the governor of Bauchi State of not applying the sum of N8.6billion  bailout funds to the purpose (according to them) for which it was collected, or merely saying he is running a government that excludes their personal interests, will get the nation abandoning the real issues at hand to shift attention to Bauchi.
If, indeed, the allegations against Governor Abubakar were true, it is worth paying attention to, even if Bauchi is only one of 36 states in Nigeria,  and there is no way an issue that affects only about three million Bauchi Stae population can override that which badly affects 170 million people, as the budget padding issue has done.
Many Nigerians have expressed disgust that the timing of Dogara’s allegations against the Bauchi Governor, and ridiculously following it up with personally leading a delegation to protest against him, is not right. Even Robert Greene has tutored his disciples to always master the art of timing.  In terms of priority, clearing his name against the allegations of budget padding should have been more important.
The truth is that, as in many other states of the federation, Governor Abubakar met an over-bloated civil service of well over a hundred thousand personnel in Bauchi State. So over-bloated was the number of civil servants that funds accruing monthly to the state, in statutory allocation from the Federation Account, could not even address payment of salaries, not to talk of other matters of development and of urgent importance to the state.
Even when he very well knows it was all landmines set up to entangle him, the Bauchi Governor disappointed the perpetrators of this evil by not sacking tens of thousands of civil servants and causing deep damage to the innocent ones among them. To minimise the damage and ensure justice, the governor decided that the way to go was to institutionalise  a process of sieving the grain from the chaff by identifying actual workers from the ghost, non-existent ones.
Did Governor Abubakar divert the bailout funds, meant for payment of salaries, to something else? First of all, it is to the credit of the governor that none of the venom-spewing adversaries accused him of diverting the money to his personal use. And the answer to the question is that the bailout funds were never diverted. Anyone in doubt could crosscheck with the ICPC, which investigated the matter and gave Governor Abubakar a clean bill of health. Thefunds were openly applied for the purpose for which it was collected. Save for mischief, Dogara knows more than all of us do that though Bauchi is situated on the lower rung of the statutory allocation ladder. With very little potential for internally-generated revenue, Governor Abubakar has strived to be as up to date as possible, with payment of salaries to civil servants.
To lay a solid foundation for the development of the state and boost its sources of revenue, the governor has developed and transformed the Yankari Games Reserve to international standards, and has been paying commensurate attention to overall development and transformation of all of Bauchi, not sections thereof,  even though he is inhibited by the clearly-known national tragedy of paucity of resources.
This brings us to the question of motive. People have rightly been asking, what does Dogara aim to achieve by sabre-rattling? The one person that brought the perspective of most of Bauchi people to unambiguous clarity, as reported by Daily Trust last Tuesday is  a person that knows the genesis of all the shenanigans surrounding this dirty political-play,  the Senior Special Assistant to the Bauchi Governor on Media and Communications, Comrade Sabo Mohammed. He was quoted by Daily Trust (page 40 of the edition under reference) that problem started between the Dogara and his co-travelling latter-day agitators, on one hand, and Governor Abubakar, on the other, “when they told the Governor that President Buhari has blocked leakages in the National Assembly and they wanted the governor to connive with them and short-change Bauchi people, but he refused. That’s why they are fighting him.”
The governor’s aide also pointed to intrigues surrounding the general election year of 2019 as another reason Dogara and co are neck-deep in fighting the governor. The group is believed to have co-opted a member of the federal cabinet to contest against Governor Abubakar in 2019, in case Dogara’s rumoured candidature refuse to fly.
To buttress the fact that the motive of the latter-day agitators is far from being noble; that it is all about personal interest, they complained to the APC National Chairman that Governor Abubakar is running an exclusive government.  This was also shot down by Comrade Sabo, the governor’s media aide when he pointed out in that Daily Trust publication that “after the gubernatorial primaries, the governor picked Engineer Nuhu Gidado as his deputy, though Gidado had contested against him in the primary election”.
“Again, the allegation that the governor has sidelined them is unfounded because five serving commissioners were close to those people that are now fighting the governor. Why are members of the state house of assembly and the state chapter of the APC not complaining? It goes to show that the Abuja politicians are out for mischief.”
Does Dogara listen to any wise counsel from his retinue of advisers and hangers-on? Only they can answer, but it is either they are giving him inferior advice, or they are afraid to tell him the bitter truth. Throughout history, even the wisest generals believe the best way to win a war is not to spread your strength thinly. In the traditional Bauchi society that some of us sprouted from, trouble is regarded as an enemy that one is enjoined to always keep a safe distance from, not just when it knocks on one’s door.
Musa wrote in from Bauchi.