It appears clearly that nemesis is catching up with former governor of Yobe and incumbent Sen. Bukar Abba Ibrahim. Sen. Abba it was learnt wants to have everything for his family even as he was governor of the State for 10 years and has being in the Senate despite lacklustre performance for over a decade now.

As a governor, he appointed all his three wives in different capacities and all under the payroll of the Yobe State Government. His last wife and current minister of state for foreign affairs, Hajia Khadija Ibrahim Waziri was appointed by him in the state executive council as the commissioner of transport. She was in the position until the last day of her husband as governor. While he gave himself the automatic ticket at the upper chamber after 10 years as governor, Sen. Abba gave same automatic ticket for the House of Representatives seat to his dear third wife, Khadija Waziri. The two had being at the National Assembly since then and against the wish of highly incapacitated citizens of their zones until President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Khadija in his cabinet in 2016.

Conflict of interest among Bukar Abba’s family started when the senator sort to replace his wife who again indicated interest to contest for the House of Representatives seat in 2019 with his eldest son and son of his first wife. As greedy as he has proven to be and after denying opportunities to several Yobe indigenes over the years, his minister wife, Khadija resisted the desire of her husband and vowed to contest for the primary election with her step son.

While Sen. Abba’s relationship with Governor Ibrahim Gaidam had deteriorated because the governor rightly considers Abba as greedy, a none performing senator and vowed to retire him from active politics by personally contesting for same senatorial seat since they are in the same senatorial zone, Mrs Khadija was wise enough to abandon the political camp of her husband and declared loyalty to the powerful Bra-Bra camp.

When it became clear to Sen. Abba that he cannot match the popularity of Governor Gaidam in the zone and that he will be humiliated if he allowed himself to go into the senate primary election with the incumbent Governor, he ‘wisely’ initiated a deceptive rhetoric that it is now time for him to retire from active politics and painfully declared support for Governor Gaidam’s senatorial ambition and also endorsed the candidature of Gaidam’s anointed guber candidate, Mai Mala Buni. In Mr. Bukar’s selfish calculations which was reportedly part of the ‘truce’ he entered with Mr. Gaidam, is that he will be considered for ministerial appointment if President Buhari returns to power. His confused rhetoric of retirement from politics is considered by pundits as one of the many contradictions of the former governor as he has said severally and even one month before his purported retirement from politics that, “I am in politics for life. I will be a senator for life”.

Sen. Bukar also suffered another setback when his wife, the minister of state for foreign affairs, Khadija Waziri backed by the Yobe State Government convincingly defeated her step son, his son to get the ticket of the House of Representatives of the APC. Bukar Abba was pained with the development but helpless and incapacitated to come to the rescue of his son. For Bukar Abba, everything starts and ends with him and his immediate family until now that Governor Gaidam vowed to ensure justice to the people of the State and his senatorial zone in particular.

It became clear to Sen. Abba recently that he is indeed losing out and that even if President Buhari returns in 2019, he will not be considered by the state to represent her at the federal level for appointment. It was on the strength of accepting that sad reality that the senator now retort to giving the APC government a vote of no confidence. It is on record that Sen. Abba has never been active at the upper chamber. In fact, whenever cameras focus on him, he is either sleeping or not concentrating at all. While many senators have initiated several projects with their constituency allowances and other gestures they used to get, Bukar Abba has no single project to his credit in any of the local governments that constituted his zone for over decades he has been at the red chamber. He actually did not retire in politics but was forced out by incumbent Governor Gaidam.

That is why Sen. Bukar Abba Ibrahim ruefully admitted that his party has dashed his dreams and hopes as a progressive party.
He said this at his 70th birthday and book launch ceremony at Barcelona hotel in Abuja today.
The Senator who turned 70 Saturday said, “Without mincing words, as an elder statesman, I must say that my dreams and hopes have been dashed. We have certainly not done what I dreamed we will do and in many ways we are no better than the PDP that we sought to displace.”
Showing his frustration on the night, the Yobe politician said “As we move towards the elections, I have to give a dire warning to the APC. Things are no longer the way they were in 2015 when we rode to power on a cloud of euphoria believing that things will change. Simply put, things have not changed and many things are worse and the people are bitter. We should not assume that we can win even with massive rigging.

‘The economy has gone down because of our actions and we are blaming the past too much rather than solving the present problems. I am going to give a dire warning. Let the North East not be taken for granted that we must support APC. Our interest in the North East has always been progressive and I will personally be watching for improvements in the APC. Improvements that will guarantee us victory such as respecting the rule of law and releasing political prisoners. If we are fighting corruption let us fight every corrupt persons and not select people in what may be seen as a one-sided witch-hunt.”

‘I shall sit back and continue encouraging my party to do the right thing. But if we don’t, I still reserve the capacity to ask my people to go our separate ways and do what must be done for good governance to reign in Nigeria’ the Senator said.

It would be recalled that apart from none performance, Sen. Bukar Abba recently embarrass the entire state, making the state subject of ridicule when he was cut on pictures and video virtually naked in a very cheap hotel in Abuja having his usual fun. That shameful video if the senator is decent is enough to prompt his outright resignation as a senator.

Source: Desert Herald