Dogara’s honour from home, abroad for exemplary leadership

It was the late sage, the Sardaunan Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, who admonished his fellow Northerners to blow their trumpet; otherwise, nobody would blow it for them because everybody would be busy blowing his own. That seems to be the case as the Speaker of the 8th House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Yakubu Dogara is […]

It was the late sage, the Sardaunan Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello, who admonished his fellow Northerners to blow their trumpet; otherwise, nobody would blow it for them because everybody would be busy blowing his own. That seems to be the case as the Speaker of the 8th House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Yakubu Dogara is being honoured today by his own brothers and sisters; the Zaar Development Association (ZDA), a socio-cultural association for the Zaar (Sayawa) nationalities. The award is also to be conferred on the late Zaar Patriot and Freedom Fighter, Baba Peter Gonto (Posthumously) and the immediate past Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Prof. Suleman Elias Bogoro.
Interestingly, the award is coming as part of the celebration of Lhm Zaar, an annual cultural harvest and thanksgiving for the Zaar nationalities which witnesses the gathering of sons, daughters and even neighbours of Zaar nationalities within and outside the country.
Like Late Gonto, Dogara, is being honoured for his contributions to the socio-economic emancipation and development of his people, the Zaar Land, Bauchi State and Nigeria as a whole. Also in the same analogy, like Gonto, like Dogara, today and in hundreds of years to come, the history of Zaar Land can not be written without acknowledging the critical and strategic roles played by the duo in shaping its development.
It is instructive to note that Gonto and Dogara’s similar vision is for the development of their immediate environment, the state and Nigeria at large. That was what Gonto, a devout Pioneer Zaar Christian from Mwari lived for and died struggling to achieve. He therefore laid a solid and formidable foundation right from the early 1900s as a youth until when he died on 14th April 2000.
It is this zeal and passion to ensure socio-economic and political emancipation of the Zaar nationhood which burned in the heart of the late patriarch Baba Gonto that most Zaar nationalities and their generations yet unborn carry over for the overall development of the society. The spirit of selflessness and sacrifice which Baba Gonto exhibited are unarguably the springboard of Dogara’s tenacity to ensure the development of the society.
During his first eight years in the National Assembly, Dogara was seen as one unique legislator from Bauchi State who did not discriminate against whoever went to him for assistance – whether he was from his constituency or not. He empowered thousands of youths with skills, facilitated employments to several others, facilitated road, water, electricity and other projects to his constituency. The speaker also personally provided bursary to students in tertiary institutions, assisted farmers with farm inputs and Fulani herdsmen with animal feeds and vaccination.
And as Speaker, Dogara has sustained this humane gesture by bringing development to Bauchi State, the North East as a whole and not only his constituency. What assistance can you render to a person better than to meet his health needs? Dogara invited over 50 medical doctors and other health personnel to Bauchi who attended to the needs of about 28,000 patients in all the 20 local governments in the state. Since you can not restrict any good gesture to a certain state, patients from the entire North Eastern states of Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba and Gombe also benefited from the free medical outreach.
The Speaker has lived up to expectation as a son of the North East. Dear  to his heart is the issue of the ravaged people of his region, hence he dedicated a good part of his one year to ensuring that the security challenges in the North East was brought to the front burner. He first moved a motion for urgent need to provide relief materials and other needs for the victims of Boko Haram insurgency in the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. He has also visited Internally Displaced persons (IDPs) camps in Yola, Edo, and Abuja where he provided them with food items, clothes and other materials to cushion the hardship faced by them.
But the Speaker believes that provision of relief materials and other items to the internally displaced persons should be seen as a temporary measure. That was why during one of the sittings in the House; and for the first time in the history of the House, he vacated his seat and presented a bill for the establishment of North East Development commission (NEDC), akin of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). As passed by the Senate and is expected to be concurred at the House of Representatives, the NEDC will cater for wholistic developmental issues and challenges in the North East, including Kano and Jigawa States.
The Speaker’s actions and words have truly shown that he is another leader who is capable of uniting this country. He has carried all the legislators along in the scheme of things, whether you are from the North, South or East. He has widened and sustained his friendship horizon across all shades and divides of the country, thus placing him on a pedestal of a true Nigerian leader.
To round off, the Speaker has juxtaposed his leadership qualities with cooperation and cordial relationship with the Executive arm of government, thus creating a mutual and cordial relationship with the Executive for good governance. Even his critics will not fault him in this direction, since he has not abdicated his responsibilities on the altar of this mutual and harmonious relationship. The resultant effect is that for once in the country’s political scene, the hitherto rancour and acrimony have reduced to a bearable level.
These achievements have earned the Speaker honour from reputable organizations such as the Zik Leadership Prize for Good Governance, Leadership Newspapers as Politician of the Year 2015, Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Bauchi State, among others. The “Leadership and Development” Award to be conferred on Dogara today, further shows that he is a leader who is honoured from both home and abroad.
Habila is the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to Speaker Yakubu Dogara on Media and Publicity.