Politics Of Genuflection: Yuguda Should Leave Gadi Alone

By Odimegwu Onwumere

The popular saying that to attract the pity of neighbours so that a hated dog can be killed, give the dog a bad name and kill it. Without doubt, that was what the principle(less) Governor of Bauchi State, Mr. Isa Yuguda is doing. He wants to nail his deputy, Mr. Mohammed Garba Gadi, after Yuguda unashamedly genuflected to the Peoples Democ ratic Party (PDP) from the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) under which platform he mounted the saddle, but Gadi said no, he was not going to genuflect. Yuguda unashamedly genuflected to the PDP with the shamelessly Speaker Bauchi State Government and 17 other members of the House.


Yuguda's inefficient capability to handle and stabilize peace he said is not in the ANPP, has betrayed his position as once the leader of Bauchi ANPP and calls for questioning his status as a governor, if he couldn't broker or make peace in the ANPP as a result he decamped. Shameless. Why should Yuguda be a thorn in the neck of Gadi now simple because Gadi has refused, for now, to join him in the PDP?


Yuguda who looks feminine and gentle has the fundamental rights to join any party of his choice, but his action to join the PDP again after he lost the bid to contest under its platform in the last elections put a question mark on his personality. Yuguda could now be seen as a feeble man and indecisive politician who can't build a political structure of his own, but to reap from where he did not farm.


It is not only shameful but messy to observe Yuguda as saying that he sees no meaning in his Deputy's refusal to genuflect with him to the PDP. Yuguda was even reported as saying that “ANPP is under the control of two individuals whose influence and interest in the party are enormous to the extent t hat any individual or group that normally held contrary views would be considered an outcast”. What a statement! So, we have seen reason why Yuguda does not want to leave Gadi alone, because Gadi held a contrary view that it is shameful to decamp to the PDP for pork of animal protein.


The statement by Yuguda has credited him as a shortsighted man and politician. And one wonders how he can stand for the people of Bauchi in a case of external aggression if he could not stand for the ANPP when he felt the cheeps were down. He might run to the neighbouring Borno State. He should leave Gadi alone!


Gadi's stance not to defect to the PDP, extols his virtues as a man who doesn't follow the crowd owing to the noise the crowd like the PDP is making in Nigeria, because not everybody in the crowd have succeeded. Gadi's stoical gesture could be likened to Okonkwo's Things Fall Apart who was there for the Umuofia through thick and thin. ANPP should not allow him be disgraced by the genuflected cabals from the ANPP. Yuguda's behaviour has earned him a titular-governor in the public parliament.


Gadi's stance of still remaining where he is should be applauded by all, because it's the magnanimous concepts of such as Gadi that makes democracy strong in every clime. One could not fa thom Yuguda's statement that it was the crises in ANPP that he left for the PDP. Is it in the PDP that Yuguda would get the solace he is looking for? Perhaps Yuguda didn't know that the PDP is a beehives of many problems; perhaps Yuguda didn't know that in the eyes of well-meaning Nigerians they see such act as his as an act meant for political-prostitutes. Such politicians lack the clout to remain where they are under any circumstance.


Trying to lay hand on nonsense as why he defected to the PDP, one reads one of the nonsensical from Yuguda in the 21st century politics thus: “After Bauchi State had accepted and conceded the ministerial nomination to Ambassador Babajidda from Borno State and after his rejection, instead of offering the seat given to Dasuki Nakanda, the Plateau State campaign manager of Senator Ahmed (Yerima), that wasn't in contention”. Imagine such a statement was from a man, who called himself a governor of a state. He couldn't take steps to better things?


The problem with Yuguda can't be traced to any other thing than lack of political wherewithal and composure, to surmount his challenges. To try his weakness now, he is presenting his burner before Gadi to be used in the political laboratory. And what was Yuguda's envy against Gadi? What did Gadi do to him in the first place?


Hear Gadi: “Well, if that i s the reason for His Excellency's defection (because of the very bleak prospects of ANPP, according to Yuguda. Emphasis mine), sincerely speaking, everybody can take decision based on what he believes… No, no one can influence me at my age.”


Yuguda shouldn't be seen as a democrat by a mere pronunciation, but a tyrant by features, following his hunting of Gadi for refusing to join the PDP. What is bad in the statement above by Gadi that perhaps had infuriated Yuguda? Is Gadi not man enough to say his mind and take decision?


Well, no one blames Yuguda of his actions against an innocent Gadi because from the onset there had been speculation that he never wanted Gadi as his Deputy, but Gadi's predecessor, in the person of AbdulMalik Mahmmod, who served the former governor Adamu Muazu. But perhaps Mahmood was a stooge and that was why Yuguda preferred him to Gadi, who had exhibited a rare stoical radicality.


In trying to nail Gadi by all means, because Nigeria is a place where Deputy Governor or Deputy President is to pay servant-to-master allegiance, it was reported that the House in its bid to impeach the innocent Gadi by all means have accused Gadi of many alleged misappropriation of fund amounting into millions from when he was Commissioner for Lands. But if Gadi is impeached, will never bring about the pe ace Yuguda is looking for in Bauchi, if at all he is looking for any. The problem with Bauchi is not too far: Yuguda's inefficiency and ineptitude to govern.


If anybody is due for impeachment in that state called Bauchi, then it is Yuguda, Speaker Babayo Gamawa and the 17 other gluttonous members who joined the PDP and betrayed the trust the people of Bauchi had on ANPP, which was why they were elected.


The question again is who is going to be the leader of the PDP in that state because in every state, the flagbearer of a party is the leader? But from Yuguda's unqualified performance in the ANPP, can he lead a controversial party like the PDP if given the priviledge?


However, no matter the money that perhaps has changed hands among Yuguda and his lame-duck members of the House to humiliate Gadi, let Gadi's prayers thus work for him: “I call on all people who believe in fairness and justice, those who believe we need fairplay, to fast and pray for me that whosoever contributes to my suffering without my cause, may Allah crush him within such a time”. Good prayer.


Odimegwu Onwumere is the Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers St ate. +2348032552855. [email protected]