Yuguda, Adesina and the people's goodwill

By Abdu Labaran
Posted: Friday, March 18, 2011

There is no doubt that Mr Femi Adesina, the Deputy Managing Director and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Sun Newspaper Group, is one of the enlightened writers of his generation whose interventions in public discourse carry profound depth and weight. However, his interrogation of the state of political affairs in Bauchi State in his column of Friday, March 4, 2011 entitled, "Yuguda: how to squander goodwill", distorted issues and misrepresented facts that discerning minds are forced to wonder whether he wrote about an imaginary Bauchi State in outer space or the real political entity in the northeast geo-political zone of Nigeria currently being led by Mallam Isa Yuguda as governor.
As an adult citizen who has lived and worked in Bauchi State in the last 20 years, and whose appreciation of the underlying factors and dynamics of power that propel politics in the State is clearly above the average, it is painful to see an otherwise brilliant and respected commentator on issues of national importance deploy his writing skills in the service of jaundiced journalism. It is clearly dishonest for a columnist of Adesina's reputation to use a newspaper space intended for the ventilation of ideas on how to positively develop society to mischievously pillory a governor he does not like his face or attempt to deceive the unwary public into believing that the performance profile of the chief executive of a State he does not wish well in the gubernatorial election is un-salutary, just to satisfy pecuniary or untoward political interests.
The first major blunder committed by Mr. Adesina in his treatise on Yuguda and the unfolding political scenario in Bauchi State is his advertised lack of appreciation of the fact that the main factor that determines how the electorate votes in elections is pedigree, vision and capacity of the individual candidates contesting an election to appraise and address the developmental problems confronting the people, as well as the deliverance of the dividends of democracy, and not about any political party ideology since political parties in Nigeria are just platforms from which candidates contest, win or lose elections. In 2007, for instance, the people of Bauchi State voted for Yuguda on the basis of his pedigree and antecedents as a former managing director of Inland Bank and NAL Merchant Bank, as well as his achievements as Minister of State in the Federal Ministry of Transport and full-fledged Minister in the Ministry of Aviation during the Obasanjo Administration between 1999 and 2007. The point being made here, therefore, is that in 2007, Yuguda's supporters in the PDP and other parties exercised their franchise for him through the ANPP platform after he was undemocratically and unjustifiably denied the PDP ticket by the conniving and sinister intrigues of Mu'azu and the Ahmadu Ali-led PDP national leadership. The ANPP, as a political party, did not win the election for Yuguda as Mr. Adesina would want the world to believe.
Again, the assertion by Adesina that Yuguda is now against the Bauchi State people who voted him into power in 2007 because he betrayed them by abandoning the ANPP for the PDP in 2009 is not only patently ridiculous but must have been fantasised  by the fairy-tale imagination of an infantile mind. As I pointed out earlier in this discourse, the expectation of the people of Bauchi State in politics is about the deliverance of the dividends of democracy which has the potential to impact positively on their lives, and not about any political party ideology. With this elementary appreciation of the issues that inform governance in Bauchi State in mind, how can any columnist that is worth his/her salt, and who wants the reading public to take him/her seriously insinuate that Yuguda is against the people event after he renovated about 25 secondary schools and technical colleges, including the upgrading and rehabilitation of the College of Legal and Islamic
Studies, Misau, in under three years to address some aspect of the educational needs of the people? How can a writer who claims to be telling the truth about Yuguda's relationship with the people of Bauchi State pontificate that Yuguda has betrayed the people even after he constructed 8 new General Hospitals at Tafawa Balewa, Toro, Kafin Madaki, Katagum, Ningi, Jama'are , Bayara and Tashar Babiye in Bauchi metropolis, in under three years to take care of the health needs of the residents of the State? Unless the phrase "against the people" and the word  "betrayal" have lost their true meanings, it is difficult for any rational mind to understand what point Mr. Adesina was making in his write-up by antagonizing Yuguda with blatant falsehood.
In fact, the dismissal of Isa Yuguda's performance profile over the last four Years as a "monumental tragedy" makes objective observers to wonder whether Mr. Adesina left his thinking cap at home at the time he was busy in the office crafting his jejune tantrums against the current governor of Bauchi State. Pray, under what circumstances could the provision of boreholes and earth dams in all the local government areas of the State, as well as the execution of water schemes in 54 schools, 28 hospitals and clinics in Bogoro, Kari and Gololo towns, for instance, translate to "monumental tragedy" on the part of Yuguda? In what context could it be rationally said that the upward review of the salaries and allowances of workers in the State, and the purchase and distribution of about 1,000 brand new cars at 50% discount (subsidy) to civil servants tantamount to "monumental tragedy" on the part of Yuguda in the area of performance?  Unlike the
Femi Adesina I used to know, did he descend to this abysmal and gutter-level brand of amateurish journalism in his tantrums against Yuguda just to paint him black in order to hang him?
If Adesina's diatribe against Yuguda so far is not nauseating enough, what are we to make of his absurd claim that "Yuguda has sought refuge under the Goodluck Jonathan umbrella" in the vain hope of escaping being beaten by the gubernatorial rain in the Bauchi State governorship election? Now, even those with an elementary knowledge of the dynamics of political power in Nigeria appreciate the fact that it is those contesting presidential elections who depend on the political structures of state governors to win their elections. Apart from the delusional prognostications of an Adesina, who does not know that the fate of both Yuguda and Jonathan in the April elections in Bauchi State will be determined by all those farmers, traders, artisans, students, civil servants, women, etc, whose lives have been enhanced, transformed and positively touched by the policies and programmes of the Yuguda Administration? Is Adesina mischievously or ignorantly
insinuating that those who will determine Yuguda's fate in the Bauchi State gubernatorial election in April 2011 would be imported from Jonathan's Bayelsa and Sambo's Kaduna States? The truth is that Yuguda has no need to seek political refuge under Jonathan's umbrella to win the governorship seat of Bauchi State, rather it is the Jonathan/Sambo ticket that needs Yuguda's political structures to make any meaningful impact in the State during the presidential election.
In conclusion, the point needs to be made, though to the consternation of the Femi Adesinas of  this world, that just as Yuguda's antecedents as a former managing director of two national banking institutions, as well as his achievements as a two-time minister in the Obasanjo Administration, made it possible for him to triumph in 2007 over the obstacles laid on his gubernatorial path by the troika of Obasanjo, Mu'azu and Ahmadu Ali; the positive impact of his infrastructural developmental projects, as well as his empowerment programmes on the lives of the people of Bauchi State, will guarantee victory for him over the sinister antics and dubious machinations of another troika made up of Mu'azu, Yayale and Bala Mohammed in the April 2011 governorship election.
On the day of the governorship election in Bauchi State, most of the eligible voters are likely to have at the back of their mind, while casting their votes the fact that Yuguda sponsored Bauchi State students to be trained as pilots and aeronautical engineers in the USA or that he extended N500 million loan to local traders and artisans to boost local businesses in the State. They will hardly remember the nonsensical pontifications of Mr. Adesina in his Daily Sun column of Friday, March 4, 2011 or the theatrical shenanigans of the troika of Adamu Mu'azu, Yayale Ahmed and Bala Mohammed, intended to undermine Yuguda's wining chances in the governorship election in Bauchi State. In fact, to maintain that Yuguda has not squandered the peoples' goodwill is to state the obvious truth even in the eyes of God.                                 
Labaran wrote in from Bauchi