HOW ATIKU SUPPORTED SARAKI TO BE SENATE PRESIDENT – DOGARA REVEALS
HOW ATIKU SUPPORTED SARAKI TO BE
SENATE PRESIDENT – DOGARA REVEALS
Speaker of the house of
representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has revealed that former Vice-President Atiku
Abubakar backed Bukola Saraki’s ambition to be Senate President in 2015.
Saraki’s bid was met
with serious opposition from the leadership of the All Progressives Congress
(APC), apparently including President Muhammadu Buhari.
Dogara himself was not
supported to be Speaker by the APC’s hierarchy, but he went on to defeat the favoured
Femi Gbajabiamila in a tight contest.
Atiku, Dogara and Saraki
all decamped from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2014.
In his biography, ‘A
Reed Made Flint’, authored by Ovation publisher, Dele Momodu, Dogara provided
more insight into how Buhari became president in May 2015.
“There was this
particular time we were meeting with our leader in the North-East, His
Excellency Atiku Abubakar at his residence. Our governor (Mohammed Abubakar)
had come into town and some of our stakeholders in APC Bauchi had gone to see
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Somehow, Asiwaju (Bola Tinubu) and one other person
walked into that meeting and he did not waste time in pushing his Gbajabiamila
agenda forward.
“He spoke passionately
about the role he had played in APC, the way he had built bridges between the
South-West and the North and he appealed to my brothers and sisters who were
there, all the political leaders and stake holders of APC from my state to
prevail on me to stop this race and support his candidate Femi Gbajabiamila to
become Speaker. After he had spoken, he left.
“If I don’t say this to
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s credit I will not be fair to him. It will amount to
travesty. At the time when most leaders in the APC were not showing sympathy to
our cause, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar came out as one solid voice in support of both
the candidature of the now Senate President (Bukola Saraki) and my humble self.
“He said the North-East
must have a position and it was his duty as a leader from the North-East to
support that goal. And more so, because of the religious demography of Nigeria
there was the need to have a Northern minority Christian in government as that
would help to smoothen religious engagement and relationship in the North and
put paid to the insinuation that APC was just a Muslim party,” Dogara told the
author.