From Ahmad SAKA, Bauchi
A former Speaker Yakubu Dogara has described Simon Lalong, Governor of Plateau State and Director General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organisation as a coward.
Dogara was speaking in a statement that by his Media aide, Turaki Hassan Adamu which was distributed to reporters in Bauchi, as a response to the Chief of Staff to the DG of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation, Yakubu Datti, who accused Dogara for trying to play the religious card after he lost the bid to be nominated as running mate to the party’s Presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.
Datti, while responding to Dogara’s prediction that the APC’s Muslim-Muslim Presidential and Vice Presidential ticket was “doomed to end in a spectacular failure”, and his call on Christians “to resist the temptation of wasting their votes on the ticket” in the 2023 general election, posited that Dogara was championing selfish interest under the guise of religious equity.
“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,” Datti argued.
“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”
Dogara said that Datti was nothing more than Lalong’s lapdog because the Plateau governor was afraid to openly admit the mistake of the APC’s Muslim-Muslim Presidential and Vice Presidential ticket which Dogara and a few courageous northern Christians have openly opposed.
“It now appears that Governor Lalong, in a display of cowardice, decided to adopt Hon. Yakubu Datti as his pen name in order to continue attacking Rt. Hon. Dogara with inanities,” Turaki said in a press release entitled Torrents of Obloquy on Rt.Yakubu Dogara by one lapdog’s lapdog, Hon.Yakubu Dati.
“We are quite aware that Yakubu Dati and a few cronies of his principal have constituted themselves into a ‘cabal’ inflicting terror and deceit on the good and peaceful people of Plateau State, who in the past seven years have suffered maladministration, oppression and nepotism.
“We understand this character called Yakubu Dati is usually high on some cheap stuff and it serves no use responding to issues raised by some inebriated person.
“We, therefore, choose to unmask the masquerade, who himself is a lapdog, instead of addressing his sick puppy. Hence, moving forward, every punch thrown at the Rt. Hon. by Governor Lalong or any of his lackeys would be decisively countered.
“Why is Governor Lalong obsessed with Rt. Hon. Dogara, one may ask? First, it was his house in Jos and now it is his character that he is fighting hard to impugn. This is even as Rt. Hon. Dogara is not known to and cannot be quoted as having ever spoken ill of the Governor, despite his proven remarkable all round ineptitude.
“How dare you compare terms that turned Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa-Balewa Federal Constituency into a massive construction site to Governor Lalong’s two terms of pangs, pains, devastation, anguish and death on the Plateau.
“Where on the Plateau has Governor Lalong constructed an 82 kilometer road? We counsel him to check out Bauchi – Tafawa Balewa Road only before talking about an injustice done because a Legislator was returned for a 4th term. After all, his constituents are not daft to have elected Rt. Hon. Dogara for four consecutive tenures when no House of Representatives member from the constituency had ever won a re-election.
“To put it mildly, Rt. Hon. Dogara has always won his elections despite fierce opposition from more entrenched self-conceited megalomaniacs than Governor Lalong.
“He has willingly given up the seat and while doing so, insisted that it moves to another Local Government Area. He has refused to back any Christian aspirant to run for the ticket in his party in the spirit of justice, fairness and inclusiveness which he has always and still preaches. We challenge Governor Lalong to provide evidence that this is not the case”
