By Usman Abdulrahman Jariri
(Sabon Layi, Katsina State)
As the race for the leadership of the National Assembly heats up, one is not surprised to see all kinds of stories, trying to sell one candidate or the other. The latest is a report published by a section of the media titled, “Opposition PDP plotting Hön Soli’s Speakership to embarrass APC, Group Alleges.”
The story is attributed to one amorphous group called the All Progressives Congress (APC) Support Group, which is of course another of those rag tag groups quickly formed to become the mouthpiece of a candidate too afraid of his shadow to own up to his own accusations.
Anyway, as someone from Katsina State who has followed the politics of the state for decades now and therefore has followed the trajectory of Hon. Sada Soli’s political ascendancy, I can tell you authoritatively that he is not one to dabble in anything dishonest or dubious. It is therefore not only unfair and inaccurate for this group, in the person of one Alh Kangiwa Dankira, to malign the character of Hon Soli, it is malicious and dishonorable.
In the first place, anyone who knows Sada Soli knows he is a core party person, and he would never go against the party to destabilize its policies and rules. Any attempt to link his name with any plan by the opposition to foist a candidate on the House of Reps as alleged by this spooky group, is nothing short of a campaign of calumny.
The group had nothing to go on, no evidence of any sort except some tetchy bits of imagination. They recalled that Hon Soli was once Chief of Staff to Aminu Waziri Tambuwal when the latter was Speaker of the House of Reps between 2011-2015, a job Sada performed with his usual competence and tact. On the basis of that alone, these persons jumped to the conclusion that clandestine meetings are being held to make Sada the candidate of an opposition party in a bid to reenact the scenario of 2015 when Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon Yakubu Dogara became Senate President and Speaker respectively to the annoyance of the ruling party.
The handlers of whichever frightened candidate that is selling these lies hope to jeopardize Sada’s chances in a race for Speakership for which they can neither impugn his competence nor his character. They forgot that the scenario in 2015 was different, that the dynamics at play now do not support any such moves. Luckily, key players of that period, which are still gladiators in the political arena, can bear witness.
In any case, the opposition parties in the House have respectfully agreed that the Speakership is the baby of the APC by right, having won the majority in the House handily. So why would someone like Sada Soli, whose loyalty to party is absolute, whose relationship with his Governor, Aminu Masari of Katsina State and Governor Elect Dr Umar Dikko Radda is excellent and whose standing in the eyes of the president-elect Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is beyond reproach, jeopardize such a propitious position?
I am sure all those in the know see Hon Sada Soli for what he is: a political juggernaut of humble mien whose loyalty to country and party is unassailable. He is a man of towering credentials and his experience spans the civil service, the diplomatic Service and of course the National Assembly where he had spent the last 30 years, first as a staff of the National Assembly clerking for Senate and House committees, and then as a three term Member representing Jibia/Kaita federal constituency in the House of Reps.
Perhaps it is this fear that on a level field Hon Sada is more competent, more popular, and more experienced in legislative engineering than some others in the race that has led to this sort of falsification by a dubious group of fifth columnists.
Mercifully, the leadership of the party, President Muhammadu Buhari, and both the President and Vice President Elect and Party Chairman Senator Abdullahi Adamu are too politically sagacious to fall for this kind of duplicity.
