As part of efforts to have a federal tertiary institution in Yamaltu/Deba Local Government Area of Gombe State, a bill to establish the Federal University of Agriculture, Dadin Kowa was introduced in the House of Representatives.
Sponsored by Abubakar Yunus Ahmad Ustaz, the draft legislation was first presented on the floor of the House during the 8th Assembly. Due to the efforts made by Ustaz, the Bill was passed during the 8th Assembly and transmitted to the then Senate for concurrence. But it got stalled in the Senate for two years up to the end of the 8th Assembly.
However, almost immediately after the inauguration of the 9th Assembly, Ustaz dusted the bill and requested the House to recommit it to the Committee of Whole for consideration. He rallied round his colleagues for their support. His request was granted and the 9th House considered and adopted it once again in February, 2020. Today, the bill is on the threshold of history.
Going by legislative practice, one chamber alone cannot pass a bill conclusively and forward same to the president for assent. It has to go to the other chamber for concurrence.
Therefore, the Federal University of Agriculture, Dadin Kowa Bill was forwarded to the Senate for concurrence since February, 2020. It went through first reading in the Senate in June, 2021 and appeared for second reading on the Senate Order Paper and subsequent concurrence on December 15, 2021. But that did not happen until February 9, 2022.
What now remains is for a clean copy of the bill to be produced by the National Assembly bureaucracy, after which it will be transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.
Once the president appends his signature on the bill it becomes law, and the Federal University of Agriculture, Dadin Kowa is fully established by an Act of Parliament.
After going through all this, it is therefore preposterous and laughable to now hear some political jobbers making frantic but futile efforts at giving someone else the credit for the initiation and passage of the Bill.
A recent article suggested and gave credit for the passage of the bill to Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje, when he knew nothing about the draft legislation until it got to the Senate. As it is today, the bill carries the name of Abubakar Yunus Ahmad Ustaz and not that of anybody else let alone Senator Goje.
While it is true that every bill in the Parliament needs the support of all lawmakers irrespective of where they represent, that a lawmaker supports a bill does not make him its sponsor. If Senator Goje supported the Federal University of Agriculture Dadin Kowa Bill in the Senate, he did not add any value to it even as he was not the only person to do that.
Truly, Ustaz was a signatory to a letter written to Senator Goje by some concerned Yamaltu/Deba elders, against the claim by the mischievous writer that it was written by some traditional rulers. In the said letter, they brought to Goje’s attention the issue of the bill for the establishment of the Federal University of Agriculture, Dadin Kowa. This is part of legislative lobby, but that does not mean SenIGoje is the sponsor as Yunus may have also lobbied other senators for the same purpose.
For the records, Ustaz has since his assumption of office as the member representing Yamaltu-Deba Federal Constituency of Gombe State in June, 2015 been working assiduously to come up with this bill.
Truth be told, the proposal for the university of agriculture was in line with the personal legislative agenda of the lawmaker, in which the agricultural sector is prominently featured. He felt that his constituency, which comprises of mostly agrarian communities, should be encouraged to produce massively for the benefit of the people both within and outside Gombe State.
The bill sponsored by Yunus was in tandem with the Buhari administration’s vision of diversifying the agricultural sector, where it intended to have 15 agric universities in the country.
It is, therefore, quite unfortunate that lawmakers who toil day and night to come up with laudable initiatives such as the one by Ustaz have their efforts tainted by people who only feed on the crumbs they get from their paymasters.
Credit, indeed, must be given to whom it is due. On the proposed University of Agriculture, Dadin Kowa, Gombe State, the credit goes to Abubakar Ahmad Yunus Ustaz and nobody else.
Mustapha writes from Gombe
