Dogara berates Akande over oil barons’ statement

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, yesterday challenged the former All Progressives Congress (APC) Interim National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, to name the oil barons he alleged to have sponsored his (Dogara’s) election on June 9.

Dogara described the allegations as “baseless and lacking in substance and merit.”

The speaker said he expected Akande, an elder statesman, to play his fatherly role at a period of dispute within the APC’s family by seeking ways to reconcile the factions rather than attacking his person.

Akande, in a widely publicised statement on Sunday, had alleged that oil barons who never liked President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption stance, sponsored the election of the president of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, and Dogara in a bid to stifle the new government.

Akande also alleged that some splinter groups within the APC were aligning with old and new Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) forces to re-launch a platform for the 2019 polls.

But the speaker reacted that the allegations existed only in Akande’s “imagination”, adding that he won his election based on the support of his colleagues, his competence and capacity to preside over the House as the speaker.