It was glaring over the years that Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and the governor of Bauchi state, Mohammed Abubakar, were not on the same political divide. JOSHUA EGBODO….
The current tempo
The political fight between the duo, who should ordinarily be looked up to as political leaders in Bauchi state, assumed the recent tempo, when it was alleged that the governor had in connivance with the Independent National Commission (INEC) in the state concluded plans to relocate its collation centre out its original location, with the intent to deal with Dogara.
The speaker followed up with an alarm against the reported move. Recent developments, especially from the speaker have shown that the fight was yet to be over.
The fraud allegation
The speaker recently came out with some damning statistics to the effect that governor Abubakar allegedly stole N400 billion from Bauchi state, as well as alleged that there were some 1,300 more ghost workers on Bauchi state’s payroll.
Go to court
The speaker said he was resolute in his claim that Bauchi state government under Abubakar diverted public funds to the tune of N400 billion from May 2015 when he assumed office to date. The governor had an initial response to the issues, the total receipt from the federation account in the preceding three years is nowhere close to that figure.
However, Dogara challenged the governor to take the case to court if he is sure that the accusations were baseless, adding that an additional 1300 workers were also falsely claimed to have been employed by Governor Abubakar in July 2015, making the figure a total of 2500 ghost workers and not 1200 as disclosed earlier.
The discovery
It was reported that prior to assumption of office in May 2015, former governor the state Isa Yuguda was said to have employed thousands of political appointees, about 4000, which increased the monthly wage bill of the state to N2.6 billion, but on assuming office, Abubakar reportedly sacked the employees. This should have automatically translated into drastic reduction of the monthly wage bill of Bauchi state since no new recruitment into the state civil service was carried out, has been the argument.
Increase in wage bill
Dogara alleged that rather than a drop in the wage bill with the disengagement of the workers, the wage bill skyrocketed to about N7 billion, excluding that of the 20 the local government areas.
In the same vein, thousands of ghost workers were also added into the payroll of all the 20 local government areas of the state which he (Governor Abubakar) uses to divert their monthly allocations that brings the total sum of money diverted within the period to N400 billion including three payments of Paris Club Refunds and two bailouts the state received from the federal government. This, he said, excludes the internally generated revenue of the state and local government areas, which is not accounted for.
While cautioning civil servants to be careful not to allow themselves to be used to doctor documents and alter records, Dogara warned that they will surely be called upon to account for any such action sooner rather than later as there are credible reports which indicated that the governor is desperately working to doctor and alter documents and records to cover up the monumental fraud and theft of public funds.
Challenge to Dogara’s return bid?
To followers of politics of Bauchi state, the governor appeared hell bent on ensuring the fourth-term return bid of the speaker is thwarted. But others have argued that he is so popular with people of his constituency, who resolved to stand by him, come rain or shine.
A boost by Emir of Dass
The return seemingly received a boost by the speaker’s visit last week to the Emir of Dass Alhaji Usman Othman II who said he encouraged and supported Dogara to join politics. The Emir recalled that he was part of those who encouraged and strongly supported the speaker to join politics and contest for the seat of member representing Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa Federal constituency in the House of Representatives in 2007.
“As God would have it, I became emir and you won the election. That destined that we go these ways. We almost slept in the same room with speaker when he started politics”, he said.
The speaker, who repeatedly, and in apparent reference to governor Abubakar’s desperate move to stop him, said that some persons have resolved to retire us from politics appeared to have a boost by the Emire’s support in the coming elections.
“I started my political career in Emir of Dass’ palace here and the present emir was with us when the late emir our father was alive,” he recalled.
“It was in that meeting that I prayed that if there was anyone whose representation will be better than mine God should give him the seat and not me and the late emir had to call me aside to caution me that they don’t do such prayers in politics”, Dogara stated, as he commended the emir for providing the much needed leadership that have ensured peace in his domain.
Analysts said the odds seemed to be in favour of the speaker, who they said had a firm grip of his constituency’s political structures, at least ahead of governor Abubakar. So would his return bid to the House be a success story? Answers to this would be out in the coming days, when the rescheduled presidential and National Assembly elections may have come and gone.
