Dogara Breaks Silence On Contesting 2023 Election With Tinubu

Yakubu Dogara, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, has denied plotting to contest the 2023 election as a running mate to Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Recall that Dogara had recently dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and returned to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Following his defection, the media was awash with reports that Dogara was plotting a joint ticket with Tinubu to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

Reacting in a statement on Sunday, Dogara’s spokesperson, Turaki Hassan, advised the public to disregard such report.

He accused Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State of being behind the reports to disparage the person of Yakubu Dogara.

He said: “Our initial decision was to ignore them since they are utterly baseless but it appears that the promoters of this fallacy are unrelenting in spreading the falsehood and have now succeeded in making it sound believable to the extent that even some conventional and ‘credible’ media platforms are beginning to take it up.

“In order to stop the further spread of this deliberate mischief whose objective is yet to be ascertained, the public is hereby advised to disregard and totally discountenance the purported story and pictures for what they are – the handiwork of mischief-makers.

“These stories and pictures we understand are being sponsored by officials of the Bauchi State government in their desperate bid to lend credence to the infantile delusions of their principal, captured in his ludicrous postulations that Rt. Hon. Dogara left the PDP just because he was “deceived” by the APC with the promise of a position come 2023.”

He added that, “Bauchi state Governor, Bala Mohammed had publicly alluded to this and has continued to push these narratives all in an effort to malign and disparage the person of Rt. Hon. Dogara and divert attention of the people from issues of poor governance in the state.”

“2023 is still years away and therefore, it is unnecessary, distracting and insensitive to start making unfounded declarations at this time when all hands ought to be on deck in tackling the challenges of our nationhood.”

“To our best knowledge, no political party sells nomination and expression of interest forms for the post of a running mate as he/she is only appointed or selected by a flag bearer. It is therefore preposterous for anyone to claim that someone is running for the position of VP when no flag-bearer has emerged.”