ARMSTRONG ALLAHMAGANI, Bauchi
The People’s Democratic Party in Bauchi state has lambasted ex-Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, for dumping the party for the All Progressives Congress, describing him as a “political prostitute.”
The State Chairman of the PDP, Hamza Koshe Akuyam, who stated this in an interview with some journalists in his office on Monday, said that it was unfortunate that Dogara left the party pointing out that as Chairman, he will not want any of his member to leave.
He said that Dogara wanted to leave the party before now stressing that the issues he brought are “baseless” issues.
According to him, if Dogara had a problem with the inflation of contracts and other issues, he ought to have met the governor and discussed with him.
“Now, that he has left the PDP and he knew very well when he joined us in the runoff to the 2019 elections, he said APC had failed the country, APC had done this and that so he had no reason to stay there. The only option he had then was for him to join the PDP which he said was better. Now this is a contradiction.
“What I term him is a political prostitute or a normadic politician who doesn’t stay in one place.
“As a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, he did say that there was nothing more honourable for him than to leave our party, but I want to challenge him that what is more honourable is for him to resign the position he occupies,” he said.
Akuyam said that the position Dogara is now occupying belongs to the PDP, challenging him to resign the position and come back and contest it again in any other party if he is worthy of his name.
He said that Dogara has moved from PDP to APC, then from APC to PDP and now back to the APC, “so what will you say of such a man than to call him a political prostitute, no more, no less.”
The PDP Chairman said that there were signs that Dogara wanted to leave the party a long time ago pointing out that he never came to any of the party’s functions, never engaged the party leaders either in the ward levels or in the local government levels in any of his activities.
He said: “We even invited him to our meetings but he refused to him. Dogara did not represent us very well, have you ever seen him in the National Assembly? He doesn’t go there, so what else do you want from him?
“We do not want him to leave the PDP for a lame excuse, if he has a concrete reason, he should bring it but what we are saying is that, if he is really honourable as he calls himself, let him leave his seat because he clinched that seat on the platform of the PDP.”
Asked if the PDP will miss him, he said “we will not miss him, you cannot miss what you don’t have. We were on long before he joined us, the PDP was intact for the three to four years that he left us and joined the APC and we are intact in PDP waiting to take over (his seat) in 2023.”
When he was reminded that Dogara contributed and helped the party defeat the APC in the last election, he said “he helped himself. We have never gone to any local government area with him (during campaigns) except his Constituency.”
Akuyam said that even though Dogara occupied a high position of the Speaker of the lower Chamber, he still could not win election on the APC platform but had to rely on the PDP.
He said: “He was the number four citizen of the country and yet he could not clinch the ticket, the then Governor could not even give him a seat, he had to run to us as saviours to get to were he is now.
“Somebody who is number four and a sitting Governor could not use his power to give him a seat, he had to run away.”
He alleged that the former Speaker decamped to the APC because his his involvement in the NDDC issues so as to be shielded from being probed.
“When you see a dog running, he knows his problem, it is either it is hunting or somebody is hunting him, so he knows his problem. If he has a problem with NDDC, that is his own problem knows better, it is good you ask him if it was the reason he left.
“This is because he had a problem that was why he went there. APC looks like a safe haven for those who have criminal background but I am not saying he has, he knows better than anyone,” he said.
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