Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has disclosed that since Adamu Muazu left as the Chief Executive Officer of Bauchi State in 2007, there has been no tangible development in the State.
He has also been explaining why he appears to be at political daggers-drawn with sitting State Governor, Mohammed Abubakar.
His comments are contained in extracts of a recent interview which his office released Wednesday. Below are the extracts:
“I cannot fight because I want to be somebody. The people in my constituency will attest to that and even the man who literally dragged me into politics will tell you that I never wanted to be a politician.
“Even as we speak, I always say that politics has restrained me and I am not living to my full potentials. When I ran for House of Representatives, our governor then, Adamu Mu’azu kept saying go and campaign, but I told him: ‘You forced me to come and do this, I didn’t want to, I can only do it at my own time, if I win, so be it, if I don’t, it means God doesn’t want me to be there, I don’t care.’
“I really see politics as an avenue for service, and sometimes, you are forced into deep retrospection as to serving people or serving yourself, and if you’ve been brought up and trained the way we have been brought up and trained, service to others always comes first.
“Being governor of Bauchi State is not on my agenda at all. Well politics is there, you can never say, but it has never been on the agenda, but what I’m trying to do now is to perhaps lead a struggle for good governance in that state.
“Good governance has eluded Bauchi State, it doesn’t matter who amongst us will provide that leadership, I will support that person 100 per cent, we just want good governance. Plateau State with the crisis it went through is ahead of us in terms of development.
“Even states created after us are ahead of us. Gombe which was just a local government headquarters in Bauchi State is ahead of us, The moment Adamu Muazu left government, development stopped in Bauchi.
“Clearly no new district has been opened, the whole capital is crammed up, there’s no water, challenges left, right and centre, we cannot continue like that.
“This is not a struggle between I and Governor M.A Abubakar because I want to contest for governor, it is a struggle between forces of good and forces of retrogression, between who wants to see advancement in Bauchi State and those who say they are offering leadership while they are just filling their pockets.”