PDP Crisis:  Bauchi Governor, Wike Remain Friends – Akuyam, Former Chairman Replies Dogara

 From Paul Orude Bauchi

Former Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Bauchi State Chapter, Alhaji Hamza Koshe Akuyam, has described as “inconsistencies and falsehoods” opinion of former Speaker Yakubu Dogara on the current relationship between Governor Bala Mohammed and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nelson Wike.

“There comes a time when falsehood has to be addressed squarely, lest the toga of truth be conferred on it because people like me chose to be silent,” Akuyam stated.

According to the former Chairman, Dogara’s claim that Wike influenced the appointment of Chief Dan Orbih to conduct the Bauchi governorship primaries in 2018 with a view to favouring Senator Bala Mohammed is debatable.

“Yes, in the course of the consultations and permutations leading to the primaries which involved many stakeholders, on one occasion, Dogara and I had gone to Wike’s House in Asokoro where we met with Dan Orbih,” he stated.

“It was there that Dan Orbih informed us that he was being posted to Bauchi to conduct the primaries. Senator Bala Mohammed was not present.

“To therefore paint a picture of Bala Mohammed as a groveling persona non grata, who was in dire need of deliverance by Wike, can only be a product of the jaundiced imagination of Yakubu Dogara. I challenge him to get his so-called witnesses to debunk my ‘other side’ of the story”

“I can say without fear of contradiction that Bala Mohammed always regarded Wike as a friend and consistently demonstrated that.

“Without the bonds of friendship, Governor Bala Mohammed would not have joined him in the G6 movement after the convention that produced the presidential candidate of the party. It was when he realised that Wike had other objectives outside ensuring that all stakeholders were carried along that he (Bala Mohammed) opted out of what had been turned into a circus. Secondly, it was in a deliberate attempt to ensure that Wike’s ego was not bruised that Governor Mohammed scuttled a well orchestrated plot that could have succeeded in removing the Acting Chairman of the party, Ambassador Iliya Damagun at one of the NEC meetings of the party. Furthermore, members of the PDPGF of which Bala Mohammed is the chairman have always couched every resolution on the Rivers State crisis in such  conciliatory tones designed to give Wike a soft landing.  Yet, Wike would not bulge?

If Bala Mohammed is the aggressor, an ingrate, as Dogara would want the world to believe, are President Jonathan, former First Lady Dr. Patience Jonathan, former Rivers State Governor and elder statesman Dr. Peter Odili, retired Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Justice Mary Odili, former Rivers State Governor the Rt. Hon Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, former Senate President ,Senator John Mbata, Senator Lee Maeba, former National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Uche Secondus and others who God used to elevate Wike to his present day status also ingrates?

“Let me reiterate that the ongoing disagreement between Governor Bala Mohammed and Nyesom Wike, Minister of the FCT, marks a major watershed that, to borrow Dogara’s perspective, revolves around whether personal friendship should take precedence over constitutionality, whether arbitrariness should supplant order, whether what is good for the goose should not be sauce for the gander.

“Contrary to Dogara’s false narrative, from my close interaction with him, all through his illustrious public service, Governor Bala Mohammed has consistently trodden the honourable path of insisting on doing what is right for the party and the country.

“Governor Bala Mohammed maintains the noble perspective that democracy can only survive when it is driven by strong institutions and not strong individuals. Bala Mohammed’s crime, in the eyes of Wike, is his principled position that the constitution of the country and the conventions of the party bee upheld despite, no matter whose ox is gored, a position that is maintained by his colleagues on the PDPGF, going by the communique that they have consistently issued.

Dogara, in spite of all his pontifications and hallucinations, cannot see that this is the substantive issue, not personal friendship, is not only disturbing but shameful

“Dogara would not have hijacked what was clearly a pragmatic response by the Bauchi elite for a winning coalition, into a personal project

“That is why he had no qualms taking personal credit for Wike’s role; that is why he claims, without evidence, that Bala Mohammed had no money to run the elections.

“Yet is it not a contradiction that with all his so-called influence, even as the NO 4 man in the country at the time, Dogara could not muster the influence to clinch the APC nomination that could have returned him to the House of Representatives?”

“How convenient it is for Dogara to have forgotten so soon that he had been chased out of the APC by Governor Mohammed Abubakar and that, it was in the face of that crushing humiliation that Bala Mohammed and the PDP gave him the face saving ticket thereby kick-starting the collaboration between him and Bala Mohammed on the one hand and between the two and other stakeholders on the other hand.

“Dogara could not have forgotten so soon how, in my company, Governor Bala secured the withdrawal of the other aspirants for him, in line with the consensus arrangement that was aimed at eliminating the rancour that could have arisen from primaries”.