By Golok Nanmwa, Jos
Chief of Staff to the Director General of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation, Hon. Yakubu Dati at
the weekend berated the former Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, for trying to play the religious
card after he lost the bid to be nominated running mate to the party’s
presidential candidate, Senator Bola Tinubu.
It could be recalled that Dogara had said that the APC’s Muslim-Muslim
presidential ticket was “doomed to end in a spectacular failure”, and
called on Christians “to resist the temptation of wasting their votes
on the ticket” in the 2023 general election.
In a swift reaction Dati who is an APC stalwart in Plateau said the
former Speaker’s comment did not go beyond his usual championing of
selfish interest under the guise of religious equity as it fails to
contextualise his understanding of what state and nation building
constitute in the current political dispensation.
He said: “One would have thought that if the former Speaker
understands thoroughly the concept of nation building that he would
have appreciated the bid to move the psyche of Nigerians from
primordial sentiments to issues of development as there is nowhere in
history that staying trapped in the past has served as a sine qua non
for development.
“For this, lots of people have called attention to the fact that it is
only when Dogara lost the bid to be running mate to Tinubu that he
suddenly realised there was something wrong with the APC and the
significance of religiously balanced ticket.”
According to him, all the while, it seemed okay for Dogara to be
paired with Tinubu only because he sees himself as a frontline
contender for the position and nothing more.
“But Christians in Nigeria are not fooled as they know those who have
stood for them in the past, and that Dogara is not one of them as all
his politics bear no such testimonies.
“Judging by the former Speaker’s antecedents, I dare say that even if
Tinubu had picked a Christian other than him as running mate, Dogara
would still have been sour about it as his records have shown that he
is the type that always views things from a selfish perspective”, Dati
affirmed.
Dati said Dogara can only fool those who do not know him, “but for
some of us who are well aware of his past; we are aware that his
narcissistic tendencies always becloud his sense of judgment.”
He alleged that though Dogara’s federal constituency of
Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa has a good mixture of Muslims and
Christians, no one raised the religious card when he was elected into
the House of Representatives for a record four times!
He said: “In a constituency that has three local governments and
strongly believes in rotation, one would have expected Dogara to lead
by example by upholding equity through a rotational system that would
have accommodated the others.
“If Dogara believes in equity and fairness why has he not made
sacrifice to allow the two other local governments produce the Reps
member for the constituency after he had served two terms in the House
as has been the practice?
“As a good Christian that he claims to be, that would have served to
establish that he believes in justice and fairness. But he failed to
do so. From there, one can see that typically, Dogara only raises his
voice when the situation does not favour him but when it does; he
closes his eyes to it.
The APC chieftain also called on people of the country to support the
All Progressives Congress APC at all times.
