Yuguda and politics of opportunism

Yuguda was hailed by both opponents and supporters alike when in 2007, he defeated the PDP-led government of his former bosom friend and ally, former Governor Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu to become the governor of Bauchi State. No sooner had he stepped down from the podium after he had been sworn-in as the state governor on May 29, 2007, at the Ibrahim Babangida square, than his ratings in the eyes of the public plummeted. This was what Yuguda himself told journalists in the recent widely published interview he granted to five national newspaper papers in Abuja.

 By mid 2009, barely two years after he had held sway at the helms of affairs in the state, he took the whole nation spellbound by his intention to decamp to the ruling PDP, an exercise which political pundits described as a costly political gamble and ingratitude to the people who voted for him at the polls in 2007. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party officially accepted the Bauchi State governor into its fold in a grand ceremony where late President Umaru Yar’adua officially decorated him with the party’s insigma and flag in Bauchi.

In an effort to warm himself into the family of late President Yar’adua, ostensibly to gain political favour and gratification, he married Nafisa, the daughter of the late president. When he became the son in-law of the former powerful first lady, Hajiya Turai Yar’adua, Yuguda’s status in the ruling PDP and in the political circle swelled as he could be seen often times speaking  confidently and authoritatively on behalf of the first family and about the party.  Yuguda was amongst the ‘’cabal’’ who were against transfer of power to the then former vice president, Goodluck Jonathan, pending the  time when the incumbent president returns from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  where he was receiving treatment.

Although he served as  Minister of State in the Ministry of Transport and later Aviation during the first five years of Obasanjo’s administration, Yuguda remained a neophyte in the nation’s political circles for he had never contested any election until he warmed himself into General Muhammadu Buhari’s heart and benefitted from the fruit of the undiluted popularity of the General to win the Bauchi State gubernatorial election under the platform of the ANPP in 2007. Yuguda in his usual manner, ditched General Buhari and thereafter made a very unpleasant remark about the man.

 His former Deputy Governor, Alhaji Muhammadu Garba Gadi, the man on whose back Yuguda rode to gain support from Katagum and the one who  is probably the most respected person in the government, was impeached at the instance of the governor,  following a trumped-up charge of gross financial misconduct by the state House of Assembly, and in his place, Babayo Garba gamawa, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly and Yuguda’s sidekick, who presided over the impeachment session was compensated  with the position of deputy governor by Yuguda.

Isa Yuguda, Babayo Garba Gamawa and the 18 members of the state House of Assembly who sold their conscience are the losers in the impeachment saga because the Bauchi State High Court on Thursday, June 24, 2010, ordered that Garba Muhammad Gadi be “reinstated” to the position of deputy governor of the state and his entire financial emoluments from the date he was unlawfully removed from office as the deputy governor be paid forthwith’’.

As fate would have it, Allah, the only giver and taker of life and the one who bestows bounty, took President Umaru Yar’adua’s life while the small coterie of hangers-on around him was busy using his name to perpetrate its ulterior political motives. Yuguda, a hitherto level-headed gentleman who suddenly but surprisingly metamorphosed into a supercilious being following his political marriage to Nafisatu Umar Musa Yar’adua, had abruptly, in another twist of events, turned himself into a political hunt dog of Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign for the presidency, questioning anybody who dares their sycophantic crusade a “negation of Allah’s willpower to bestow power to whosoever He desires’’.

In his usual opportunistic and hypocritical manner, Yuguda is currently busy trying to endear himself to President Goodluck Jonathan by organizing a youth rally in Bauchi to support Mr. President’s bid for the presidency when the chips are down come 2011.

However, with the recent clamour for the rule of law and free and fair election in the next dispensation, it appears that it will not be business as usual for politicians of Yuguda’s ilk. Moreover, bootlickers, sycophantic and unscrupulous politicians will definitely not have an easy sail in the forthcoming 2011 election.

 Muhammad writes from Azare