In 2009, Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State, had cause to cry out against political marginalization, rascality, voodism and abuse of his personality by North East regional leaders of the party that availed him its platform to contest gubernatorial election in 2007, All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).
In view of the trust reposed in him by the electorates across party divide, Yuguda called an emergency meeting and met with other stakeholders to intimate them of his woes in the ANPP to fet out of the web safely.
First to kick against the decision to dump the ANPP as one way out, was Senator Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed, present FCT Minister and Yuguda’s ungrateful political son.
Senator Bala attempted to scuttle the efforts of Yuguda to correct the wrong doings in the ANPP including embezzlement of party funds by a clique that held the party to ransom. Senator Bala and his co-travelers, did everything possible to frustrate Yuguda’s efforts to reposition the ANPP in such away it could forge ahead as an organized party befitting its national status.
“ANPP is our party and I shall die as its member. I shall never dump the party for what ever reason”, said Senator Bala at a stakeholders meeting of the party in Bauchi.
Yuguda mindful of the consequences involved, he silently perfected his plans to join a more formidable party that could allow him a breathing space to govern the people that mandated him as a governor and the democracy for thrive.
In July 2009, Yuguda finally defected to the PDP along with all the ANPP Bauchi State legislators and across section of the party’s leadership.
ANPP was then left at the fragile and inexperienced hands of political toddlers, pretenders, mischief makers and rabble rousers.
From the day Yuguda defected, fortunes of the ANPP started to dwindle as the centre could no longer hold and no sincere and determined politician within its fold could even finance its minor undertakings as Yuguda had left unceremoniously to better organized and more nationalistic political party.
In public, Senator Bala pretended to remain with his ANPP but in his inner self, he was waiting for the right time to dump it to satisfy his penchant for wealth and power. Suddenly, the ‘golden’ opportunity came his way in the Senate through the conferment of an acting President on Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, then the serving Vice President.
While majority of Senators from Northern extraction opined that the then ailing president be allowed to continue pending, Senator Bala rudely sponsored a bill against the collective interest of the North and other Senators from friendly States of the North for an acting capacity position on the then Vice President.
Constitutionally, it was a case for debate but for sanity to prevail the Senate was forced to unanimously support the motion to save the eruption of an ugly situation that Senator Bala and his like minds had wanted to create and it scaled the hurdle.
The mere sponsorship of the bill against the interest of majority of the Senators, most especially the North, served as the spring board for sycophancy and extensive lobbying by Senator Bala Muhammed.
The despicable sycophant effectively used the success of the bill to move closer to the Ebele family and other Niger Delta tribal lords the likes of the Ijaw leader, Edwin Clark and other miscreants from the Niger Delta region who see nothing good in the north including calling the north a parasite on ‘their’ oil.
As a pay back, it was alleged that money was offered to Bala for his ‘courage’ by Goodluck Jonathan which he was said to have rejected in pretence. Unknowingly to Goodluck, Bala was silently eyeing a bigger reward from the Ebeles to satisfy his lust for power that he could not get in the senate where he was elected to be through Yuguda’s influence.
Having rejected the settlement, the then acting President mistakenly rated Senator Bala as an honest and sincere person that could be trusted. He mistakenly offered him a ministerial position to serve the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
It was a jubilation period for Senator Bala and his syndicate as he had scored his goal through deceit and pretence. He settled down and floated the FCT with his blood brothers, tribal folk and loyal associates that were positioned to serve as foot soldiers and war lords against his political mentor, Isa Yuguda.
To perfect his plan of stay in office, Bala hurriedly introduced sycophancy and bootlicking as the most veritable tools against decorum and service delivery.
He abandoned his primary responsibility in the FCT and almost relocated to Aso Villa as a permanent visitor to the number one family. He made sure his wife followed suit by paying daily homage to the first lady to curry favor.
Despite all these pretence, Senator Bala was not done, in 2010, during the first official visit of the first lady to Bauchi State to launch her pet project (Women Initiative for Change), Senator Bala wanted to impress and prove to the innocent woman as being in control of Bauchi politics. Foolishly, he fixed a date for his kangaroo decamping from the ANPP to the PDP, a party he earlier promised not to dump to tally with the day of her visit.
As expected, he was left alone at his native village with few of the guests he deceived to honor his invitation for the event including the Senate President, David Mark.
Again, Yuguda proved his political superiority over his rude and arrogant political son and confined him to his rightful position as a political turn coat and mere deceiver.
The kangaroo gathering in Alkaleri was the most shameful political jamboree ever with the state PDP leadership publicly dissociating itself from the event till this moment.
Not satisfied, Bala turned to a systematic system of blackmail as the best tool to nail Yuguda and curry favor from the Presidency which failed to scale through.
Not moved, Yuguda forged ahead to serve the people to the best of his ability and reduced Senator Bala to a mere village champion and leader of miscreants in need of a shepherd.
Finally, Bala having amassed questionable wealth within his short stay in the FCT and realized anytime he was sacked from the Federal Executive council he was going to be jobless and thrown into limbo, he summoned courage and pretended to have retrieved his steps back to own his mistakes and foolery targeted against Yuguda and was compelled to lobby Yuguda for forgiveness and to accept him back to his fold as a forgiven son which Yuguda agreed to do with pride and open mind as declared at the Abuja NIPR investiture on Yuguda in 2012.
Having publicly apologized and lobbied Yuguda to pardon him, Bala now made his 2015 gubernatorial ambition more public through his horde of miscreants and merchants of doom as he rated Yuguda the fool that can trust him again.
To perfect his 2015 ambition, Bala launched another system of sophisticated sycophancy to curry favor in the Presidency while eyeing the number position for grab in 2015 by paying nocturnal visits with lavish gifts to paramount Emirs, Obas, Obis, religious and community leaders as well as Chiefs and prominent miscreants in the Niger Delta region and the South West nationwide including allocation of choice plots of land in the FCT.
To prove his arrogance and lust for power, he first tested the water with the revocation of the land allocation of Her Excellency, Hajia Ajoke Murtala Muhammed which was certificated through the due process
Ajoke, was Nigeria’s first lady between 1975 – 76 when her husband held sway as military Head of State. General Muratala Ramat Muhammed, was gruesomely murdered in 1976 while in service for a better Nigeria.
Apart from several respected Nigerians excluding those from the Niger Delta, that suffered various degrees of humiliation in the FCDA with the connivance of the now sacked Chief of Staff, Musa Umar Yashi, next to suffer humiliation from Senator Bala is a respected elder states man, General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma. General Danjuma served Nigeria in different capacities including fighting a civil war to keep the country united. Out of power drunkenness and disrespect to elders not from the Niger Delta region, Senator Bala had the guts to humiliate the General to his satisfaction for the gentleman’s acceptance to honor an official invitation from the Minister.
Not satisfied, he went further to revoke the land allocation of Her Excellency, Hajia Turai Yar Adu’a the immediate past first lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria whose husband brought Goodluck Jonathan to the corridor of Aso Rock villa as his vice. As a professional bootlicker, he reallocated the same parcel of land to Her Excellency, Dame Patience Goodluck to prove a case of arrogance and loyalty.
The action has not only painted the Goodluck administration in bad light but exposed the inexperience and desperateness of Senator Bala Muhammed to bootlick the Ebele family without minding the consequences of his action on the respect the Ebele family enjoys and as representative of the North East in the Federal Executive Council.
Commenting on the shameful act, ACN national publicity secretary, Lai Muhammed, described Senator Bala as a despicable sycophant who wants to remain in power.
Agreed, he has tasted power, he has abused the trust reposed in him unconsciously and initiated and supported several corrupt practices to fruition and humiliated several leaders, but must he be retained as a minister having failed to deliver what is expected of him? Whose interest is Senator Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed now protecting and serving in the FCT definitely not the interest of Nigerians. Was he secretly appointed as minister for sycophancy and corrupt practices? Through his despicable sycophancy, he has brought hatred and insults to the very system he claims to serve. Nigerians, most especially residents of the FCT are not happy with his style of leadership. He has threatened and destroyed many families through his initiated demolishing exercise, revoked legally acquired plots and reallocated same to highest bidders, fought the very women that supported his pretence in the 2011 presidential campaign in the FCT (Commercial sex workers) and turned his style of administration to favor only family and friends including miscreants and blackmailers.
For the FCT to move forward, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed should not only be sacked but be sacked and thoroughly probed. FCDA stinks of corrupt practices.
