Bauchi politics and Dogara

By Abdullahi Musa

By now, the outpouring of disgust that has continued to trail House of Representatives’ Speaker Yakubu Dogara’s ill-fated attempt to divert the attention of Nigerians from the allegation of budget padding that he is enmeshed in, will hopefully teach him a lesson he will never be able to learn in any history class.
By now, it must have occurred to the most incurable Dogara loyalist that the needless, badly-scripted drama staged last week, when he led a delegation of some Abuja politicians to report his state Governor of Bauchi, Barrister Mohammed Abubakar, to the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie- Oyegun on flimsy grounds, has backfired because Nigerians are more politically conscious now to allow any politician take them for a ride.

As a lawyer, Dogara knows that anyone coming to equity must come with clean hands. Not even Robert Green, the famous American author of the 48 Laws of Power, who advocates that 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.
To 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 not get the nation to ignore the real issues at hand. Shifting attention to Bauchi will not be enough to get the discerning public to shudder at the indiscretions of the speaker.
Let us even assume for its mischievous intent that the allegations against Governor Abubakar were true, there is no way an issue that affects only about three million Bauchi citizens will override the more damning matter of budget padding that affects 170 million people across Nigeria.
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 political grandmasters often tutor their disciples to always master the art of timing.  In terms of priority, clearing his name against the allegation of budget padding should have been more urgent and important to Dogara.
The truth is that, as in many other states, Governor Abubakar met an over-bloated civil service of well over a hundred thousand personnel. Thus, funds accruing monthly to the state, in statutory allocation from the Federation Account, could not even address payment of salaries, talk less of other matters of development and of urgent importance to the state.

Even when he very well knew that 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.
But in a manner that leave their flanks open, and which could make 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 (APC Bauchi North), “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, 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, it is to the credit of the governor that with all the venom coming out of Dogara and co, 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 can crosscheck with the ICPC which investigated the matter and gave Governor Abubakar a clean bill of health. They funds were openly applied for the purpose for which it was collected.

Does Dogara listen to any wise counsel from his retinue of advisers and hangers-on? Only they can provide the answer, but it is either they are giving him inferior advice, or they are afraid to tell him the bitter truth because of his rumoured over-bearing, only-me-knows-it-all nature. 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 thin. Of course, he can seek to fight on all fronts if his motive were pro-people.
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. Trouble is like an ill wind, which blows no good to anyone.

Musa wrote from Bauchi