Re: Bauchi Gov, N/Assembly members in war of supremacy

I read, with keen interest, the analysis on page 40 of Daily Trust edition of last Tuesday (August 23) and wish to enrich the debate on Bauchi politics by offering additional perspectives and supporting those already expressed by the respected newspaper. By now, it should occur to even the most-incurable Yakubu Dogara optimists that the […]

I read, with keen interest, the analysis on page 40 of Daily Trust edition of last Tuesday (August 23) and wish to enrich the debate on Bauchi politics by offering additional perspectives and supporting those already expressed by the respected newspaper.
By now, it should occur to even the most-incurable Yakubu Dogara optimists that the totally-needless, badly-scripted drama staged last week, when the House of Reps Speaker led a delegation of some Abuja politicians to report his state governor of Bauchi,  Barrister Mohammed Abubakar to the National Chairman of the APC, on flimsy grounds, has backfired, with the reason being that Nigerians have since become more and more politically-aware, and will not allow any politician to take them for a ride by sweeping under the carpet an issue that directly affects them, using local politics as a pretext.
As a lawyer, Dogara knows very well that you come to equity with clean hands. Not even Robert Green, 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 desperate efforts to fend off attention from the budget padding matter that he sensationally claimed is not a crime, even when it involves allegations of cornering projects that benefit self, to the detriment of whole.
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 population can override that which badly affects 170 million people, as the budget padding crime has done.
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 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 sifting the grain from the chaff by identifying actual workers from the ghost, non-existent ones.
But in a manner that leave their planks open, and which could leave people to suspect their involvement, Dogara and his gang had as a prime reason for their protest to the APC National Chairman, the need to get the governor to stop the process of verifying the truth. In the words of Senator Suleiman Nazifi, "all the unending verifications must end," even though they know, more than most of us, that what they were demanding will only benefit a handful few, at the expense of millions of good people of Bauchi State.
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 with all the venom coming out of Dogara and his co-travelers, none of them 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. The funds 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 newspaper of 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-traveling 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 shortchange 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? People have rightly been asking: How many wars can the speaker fight at the same time? Throughout history, even wisest generals believe the best way to win a war is not to spread your strength thinly.
Musa wrote this piece from Bauchi.