Why I dumped PDP – Dogara finally opens up

Yakubu Dogara, immediate past Speaker of the House of Representatives, has revealed he dumped the Peoples Democratic Party to join the All Progressives Congress because the mistakes the former administration made are being repeated by Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed.

Dogara, who represents Dass/Tafawa Balewa/Bogoro federal constituency in the House of Representatives, in a letter written to the Chairman of the PDP Bogoro ‘C’ Ward, Bogoro Local Government Area of Bauchi said he was resigning his membership of the ruling party in the state.

In the letter dated 24th July, 2020, Dogara said he left the PDP because of failure of governance and mismanagement of resources in Bauchi, which have remained unanswered to him. He said, “I write to formally intimate you of my decision to resign my membership of the People’s Democratic Party. This became necessary because the same reasons why we fought hard in 2019 to effect change in the governance of our dear state are festering now.

“I intend to bring these issues to the front a burner once again as the fight to instill decent and egalitarian government in our dear state continues.

“Specifically, I intend to ask questions about the following: What has happened to LGA allocations since May 2019? What happened to our campaign promise to conduct LGA elections within six months of the PDP government?

“What happened to the N4.6 billion loan taken from a bank and paid directly into a private company’s account? Why are we segmenting salaries and why is payment of salaries of state workers outsourced to a private firm as consultants? Why are contracts inflated, awarded and payment of mobilization done in violation of extant rules on procurement?

“Why are our highly revered traditional rulers and elders treated with odium contrary to the guarantee we have during the campaign that such will not happen under a PDP government?” The federal lawmaker stated that he will be disloyal to PDP if he remained in the party having raised such issues.

“Mr. Chairman, you will agree with me that I cannot raise these issues and many more questions without a charge of disloyalty leveled against me if I were to remain a member of the PDP.

“I cannot also fail to raise these questions now, having raised similar ones during the administrations of Governors Isa Yuguda and Mohammed A. Abubakar, if I abdicate this responsibility on the altar of partisan loyalty, I will be the most irresponsible and unprincipled politician in Bauchi state.

“Thus, by this letter, I have resigned my membership of the PDP to enable me keep faith with my principle of fighting for good governance in our dear state,” he added.