By Olakunle Abimbola
Behind the ongoing Bauchi theatrics, judicial and political, is the sanctity of the political party system, an umpteenth casualty, even as Nigeria shambles in its willy-nilly advance in democracy.
But the drama ripples with varied ironies, that lead the trail right back to where and when the rain started pelting.
The first irony is Yakubu Dogara, former Speaker of the House of Representatives. The disputed seat, Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa federal constituency of Bauchi State, the embattled Dogara has held since 2007 — the zenith of PDP rule.
From those halcyon days of PDP federal power (when Dogara was faithful MP), to APC’s first taste of federal power (when Dogara was controversial House Speaker), to the present stormy days of alleged change of political gear, Dogara has been a constant: the proud poster-boy of a dominant Christian constituency, eager to enthrone its own.
Alleged change of political gear? Yes, because the matter is before a court of competent jurisdiction. Until the court rules on the matter, either way, media commentaries are not allowed. But not so, on the political aspect of the combat.
That leads to the second irony: both Dogara and Bauchi Governor, Bala Mohammed, the two prime dramatis personae in the Bauchi theatre, have been involved in cross-party manoeuvres.
Mohammed, Bauchi PDP governor (since 2019), is ex-ANPP-turned PDP veteran, in prosperity and adversity, since 2010.
He was ANPP senator (2007-2010) but became minister of Federal Capital Territory, FCT (2010-2015), even while still ANPP elected senator — the last FCT minister, under PDP rule — for supporting the “Doctrine of Necessity” that made Goodluck Jonathan acting President, in the last days of mortally ill President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
Mohammed may have joined PDP after Dogara, a veteran from 1999. But since joining up in 2010, Mohammed never left — even when the PDP power dam broke; and new PDP (nPDP) elements, like Dogara and Bukola Saraki, teamed up with the then mega opposition party, APC, to sack PDP from federal power.
That leads to the third irony: the PDP itself, on whose behalf the Bauchi battle rages. It’s the utmost irony, indeed, that PDP which during its power years made killing opposition parties and poaching their members to grow — or more accurately, bloat — now growls against injury from that very same practice.
Talk about gulping own bitter herbs!
Indeed, in the routinized subvert-to-collapse PDP policy against the luckless opposition, it became a badge of honour, in PDP-controlled parliaments, for MPs to sack parties on whose platforms they got elected, and swagger into the ruling parliamentary sanctum, cock-sure of illicit cover by the notorious “federal might”.
If you still doubt, ask former members of the defunct Alliance for Democracy (AD), for their bitter experience in the South West, and elsewhere, between 1999 and 2003.
Yes, it could be argued — and validly so — that such lack of fealty to parties was a general product of an era just emerging from long-term military rule.
Still, there was no question: the PDP amoral politics, and its power-first-and-last credo, helped in no small measure to subvert the political party system. Pray, how can democracy endure and thrive, without a robust and vibrant party system, culture and tradition?
But back to the Bauchi drama. Dogara, more than anyone from the nPDP misadventure into APC, enjoyed the best of two worlds. Is he then fated for some bitter pills, after the hurly burly is done, and the Bauchi battle is lost and won?
Unlike ex-Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, who got his Kwara political thraldom smashed, becoming a virtual POW fleeing from own metropole, jeered by former subjects to boot, Dogara somewhat clobbered back in triumph.
Unlike Saraki who lost everything — his Kwara central senate seat; and putative second term as Senate President the least of his worries — Dogara rumbled back to reckoning.
He not only dusted Dalhatu Kantana, the APC challenger for his parliamentary seat (by 73, 609 to 50, 078 votes), he also helped to oust then APC Governor and arch-rival in local Bauchi power play, Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar, whose second term dreams turned ashes, with the triumph of PDP’s Bala Mohammed.
Ay, former Speaker Dogara returned as ordinary House member and opposition legislator. But he wore, on his high shoulders, the proud chips of new Bauchi kingmaker, that delivered when it was toughest. But he forgot, apparently, Machiavelli’s chilly whoop: the sacred, bounden duty of the new king, with eye on the long haul, is the swift despatch the king maker!
So, it would appear to be, between the embattled Dogara, and Governor Mohammed baying for his blood, for clutching tight to the PDP mandate, after allegedly crossing the partisan aisle to APC.
To be sure, however, Dogara fired the first salvo. In a resignation letter from the PDP, on 24 July 2020, to his Bogoro Ward C chairman, Dogara rued the “breakdown of governance in Bauchi”, by Mohammed, the governor he “helped instal” only the previous year.
The governor and his allies riposted. ”As a party,” Hamza Kashe Akuyam, the Bauchi PDP chairman swore, “we will do everything possible to get back our seat from him through legal means.” The voice of Jacob but the hands of Esau, since the governor had dead-panned he had no problems with Dogara?
But why did the governor and allies pick the gauntlet, rather than let the alleged defection slide, as many before had done, even when it was illicit advantage PDP, the all-mighty federal ruling party, destined to rule for 60 years, at the first instance?
To push for the sanctity of the party and its sacred electoral rights? Hardly! To push Dogara’s nose out of joint, to prove who rules the roost in Bauchi politics? More likely!
Besides, when is defection a defection? Immediately you dump your party for a new one? Or after your new party enlists you in its rolls? Within that grey zone, however, what happens to the mandate you lug?
A contraband to be wrenched off you, with all the contempt your former party can muster? Or some holy grail to forbear, until the defecting process is complete? The courts have their jobs well cut out!
Still, challenging illicit defections is the way to go, if the party system must bloom with Nigeria’s growing democracy. Strong institutions are, after all, the sine qua non of vibrant democracies.
So, let the Bauchi PDP press its rights. Also, let Dogara defend his honour. But had PDP, in its power years been less wayward in bucking sacred democratic norms, it wouldn’t have been caught in this warp.
That ought to be a telling lesson to the ruling APC.
Leave a Reply