Bauchi 2019: Dogara’s fence sitting, by Umar Hayatuddeen

It’s suicidal for a politician to be left in political suspense especially at a critical time of electioneering.
For when you’re sitting on the fence, you’re either a coward or a traitor.
With recent occurrences, alignments and realignments in the nation’s political landscape as regards to the gale of defections from one party to another, it is pertinent to ponder on the allegiance of some key political office holders particularly in the National Assembly where the defection has bell ringed most and especially within the ruling All Progressives Congress caucus.
For instance, the spate of defections from the APC to the PDP in the Senate and the House of Representatives and the reactions by the leadership of both chambers have raised serious doubt as to where their loyalties lie given the fact that the said leadership has given tacit and even explicit support to many of the defecting legislators.
Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker Yakubu Dogara have even adopted decidedly confrontational postures towards the executive headed by President Muhammadu Buhari to the extent that, the duo has taken to issuing joint press conferences and press statements in which they have drawn a line on the sand daring the presidency to cross it at its peril.
Indeed, none of the presiding officers has publicly or even privately condemned the spate of defections from the APC to the PDP.
On the contrary, they have even welcome the defections while cautioning the APC national leadership against any attempt to bring their errant members to book.
The presiding officers have been strangely absent from several APC caucus meetings conveniently arranging their official schedules to coincide with the caucus gatherings.
However, the Senate president has exchanged the APC for the PDP toga along with the Kwara state Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, and other erstwhile APC members in the state signaling the abeyance of their romance with the ruling party.
But the case isn’t the same with Yakubu Dogara who has remained in the APC fold while adopting trenchantly antiparty shenanigans attracting deserved condemnation and opprobrium from a widespread segment of civil and political society.
Dogara has adopted a sit tight position as regards the prestigious Speaker seat, he has continued to hold secret and not so secret meetings with key PDP leaders in the run up to the 2019 elections.
In the green chamber, he is more comfortable in the fold of the opposition PDP than the APC and his body language has long shown that he relies more on the loyalty of the former than the latter having ceded key committee chairmen and deputy chairmanship positions to the PDP caucus members.
In fact, at several APC house caucus meetings, Dogara was conspicuously absent leaving his deputy, Yusuf Lasun, as the most senior legislator to speak on behalf of the APC members.
Thus, many tongues are wagging as to the actual disposition of Dogara to his party and President Buhari; Is the Speaker a Trojan Horse or fifth columnist out to destroy the APC House caucus from within or is he an ambivalent but still loyal member of the party? All fingers point to the former scenario as developments both within and outside his native Bauchi state point to Dogara’s disenchantment and even contempt for the APC and all it stands for, preferring to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds at the same time.
As we all witnessed, in the past three years, Yakubu Dogara has fought running battles with the Bauchi state governor, Barrister Muhammed Abdullahi Abubakar, for no just cause than to assert his supremacy over the state chief executive, a scenario that has drawn the ire and consternation of the APC rank and file within and outside the state.
He has never allowed Governor Abubakar to run the state in an atmosphere devoid of rancor, acrimony tension or political upheaval for his selfish motives.
Instead, he continues to antagonize the focused, and unperturbed governor at every turn to the extent that he moves around the state with an intimidating convoy of siren blaring vehicles to put the latter on notice as to who is actually in the state.
Also, in the electoral permutations in Bauchi state, Hon.
Dogara has always played a truculent antiparty role preferring to support the victory of the PDP in election where he is not directly contesting.
In his federal constituency, Bogoro, Dass, and Tafawa Balewa.
During the 2015 elections Dogara won on the APC platform for the House of Representatives while the PDP won in the state assembly elections for Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa local governments all within his constituency.
Also, both President Buhari and Governor Abubakar lost in Dogara’s local government.
Equally, Dogara has conspicuously avoided the APC’s congresses in Bauchi state and as the last kick of a dying horse, challenged same in court after he gave the process wide berth for a reason best known to him and his cohorts.
In the recently concluded Bauchi South Senatorial byelection, the APC won a landslide victory in the senatorial zone with the exception of Dogara’s local governments where the PDP emerged victorious with a slight margin.
Therefore, what all these strange political manifestations posit is that, Yakubu Dogara has been sitting on the fence and is actively working against the interest of the APC in his constituency while taking the PDP aspirations to the next level not caring whose ox is roved in the process.
He is an APC stalwart in the day while transmuting into a PDP chieftain in the night, a position that is no longer tenable and is grossly undemocratic, politically immoral and a blatant abuse of his high office and the mandate of the people of Bauchi state but with APC winning the bye-election without him, the general election will equally be won at all levels with or without Dogara.
And the only credible alternative for Yakubu Dogara to resign from his position as House Speaker and at the same time resign from the APC as he has become an unbearable embarrassment to the party with no political impact and a terrible nuisance not only to himself but to all right thanking members of society.
A stitch in time saves nine.
Hayatuddeen writes from Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi state