I'D RATHER HAVE A GENERAL IN THE GREEN CHAMBER, THAN A CAPTAIN IN THE RED CHAMBER.

By Mobmatics John Balewa

I still fail to see how a 'Sen. Dogara' in the Red Chamber will be better than Hon. Dogara of the Green chamber. What can he do as a Senator that he can't do as a Member?

For goodness sake, he has already attained a status in the Green chamber that is higher in hierarchy than a Deputy Senate President. If anyone sees him remaining in the Green chamber as a low status, I see him as a very low status if he goes to the Senate and become a floor member.

The former speaker has so much influence in the Green chamber such than even if he doesn't go to the chamber, the chamber comes to him, being that he still have a strong followership and loyalists in the House.

In Nigeria, we try to copy the American system of government, and a study of their system indicates that the longer one stays in the chamber, the higher influence they have. You see members that spend 40 to 50 years in the chamber; they become Senior members and as high ranking members, they attract projects even more than a Senator from their same constituencies.

Leave Bauchi politics aside, cos the political calculations may not matter now, but if out of the 3 LGAs he currently represents, Dass has never given him 50% of their votes, with Tafawa Balewa giving above average, only Bogoro giving 90 to 99%. I am yet to see who will convince Toro, Bauchi, Alkaleri; Let's not even bother about this.

Moreover the Senate is the governors' retirement home, I am sure Kaura is targeting the seat now. He won't want to support someone he cannot easily remove. He would prefer Gumau to continue so that he can easily remove him.

Unless it's to make history, I don't think a Hon Dogara who is like a General in the Green chamber will be eager to go and be a Captain in the Red chamber. His status in the National Assembly remains far better than most of them in the Red chamber. How many of them in the Red chamber has done or is doing what Hon Dogara has done, or is doing?

Commentary: this is in response to the numerous posts on social media calling on Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara to contest for the office of the senate in the coming 2023 general  election.