By Sunday Ehigiator
Fresh documentary evidence has challenged claims by the former senator representing the Taraba South senatorial district from 2011 to 2023, Emmanuel Bwacha, that he played a decisive role in bringing the Federal University Wukari (FUWUKARI) to Wukari, Taraba State, with records from 2021 and 2022 showing that Chief Damian D. Dodo, SAN was formally recognised for his influence in securing the institution for Taraba state and for Wukari town.
Bwacha’s Claim
Bwacha had, during an interview with a podcast platform, ‘Spill It’, which has since circulated on social media, downplayed the role of Dodo. While acknowledging himself and Dodo were responsible for bringing the university to Wukari, he insisted that Dodo’s role only ended with suggesting the idea, while he personally took the idea to the late Governor of the state, Danbaba Suntai, who then consented to his request as if Dodo himself had no access to the late Governor Danbaba Suntai who frequently had dinner in Dodo’ residence eating his favourite grass cutter.
“Outside myself and Damian Dodo tell me who brought that university to Wukari. Damian generated the idea for me. I sold the idea to the governor then, and he concurred with it.”
According to Bwacha, a former Senate Deputy Minority Leader, while the state university was the conception of Governor Suntai and was intended for the state capital, he advised that the federal university should be located in Wukari.
“The federal university was taken to Wukari, while the state polytechnic was taken to his village. This was my counsel,” he said.
Findings
However, documentary evidence now available in public shows that Dodo was publicly and formally recognised for his role in the location of Federal University, Wukari as far back as 2022, 11 years after the establishment of the university.
One of the key documents is a February 6, 2022 letter from the Southern Taraba Academics’ Forum notifying Dodo of his nomination for a Special Award of Excellence.
The letter, signed by the Chairman of the Forum, Associate Professor David A. Agbu; Chairman of the Organising Committee, Rev. Fr. Prof. A. I. Bature; and Secretary of the forum, Associate Professor Elijah I. Akombo, specifically cited Dodo’s role in the establishment of Federal University Wukari.
The letter stated that Dodo was nominated for the award “for the role you played not only in the establishment of Federal University Wukari, but also for the valuable Law books and related academic materials you provided for the establishment of the Law Faculty in the same Institution, and Taraba State University as well as your selfless services to Southern Taraba and beyond.”
The significance of the document is that the recognition was made contemporaneously, in February 2022, and not as a response to the present controversy.
The Southern Taraba Academics’ Forum described itself as an association of intellectuals and academicians who are indigenes of Southern Taraba, with hundreds of members comprising professors, PhD holders and other academics teaching in higher institutions in Nigeria and beyond.
Its stated objective, according to the letter, was the promotion of “education, peace, unity and general development in Southern Taraba, Taraba State and Nigeria at large.”
But the stronger evidence came from the address delivered by the forum’s National Chairman, Associate Professor David A. Agbu, at the presentation of the Special Award of Excellence to Dodo at the university on February 10, 2022.
In the address, Agbu did not merely acknowledge Dodo’s general contributions to the community. He specifically attributed the location of the federal university in Wukari to Dodo’s influence.
“First and foremost, the Forum wishes to honour our own for his outstanding influence which resulted in the location of a Federal University in our Zone at Wukari,” Agbu said.
He went further: “But for his special influence, today, our Zone can boast of one of the esteemed Federal Universities in the country.”
According to Agbu, the location of the university had generated employment opportunities, easier access to university education for young people and infrastructural and economic development in the area.
He said: “We cannot be exhaustive in enumerating the numerous socio-economic and political opportunities the location of the University in our Zone has brought to bear on the indigenes of the zone.”
The forum therefore argued that those who played critical roles in securing the university deserved recognition for bringing those opportunities to the people.
Dodo’s Influence Continues
The address also attributed to Dodo a role in the establishment of the university’s Faculty of Law.
“Secondly, and closely related to the above, the Forum wishes to honour our renowned Jurist not only for contributing to influence the location of a Federal University in the Zone, but also for his enormous contributions in the establishment of Law Faculty in the University,” Agbu stated.
He added that Dodo “was very instrumental in the establishment of the Law Faculty” and had donated “very valuable Law books and other related academic materials” to the Faculty of Law at the university and the Faculty of Law, Taraba State University, Jalingo.
The account is further supported by official correspondence from Federal University Wukari itself.
In a letter dated December 17, 2021, the university’s Vice-Chancellor at the time, Professor J. S. Rabo, informed Dodo that the Governing Council of the institution, at its 22nd meeting held on December 16, 2021, had considered and approved his nomination for an Honorary Doctorate (Honoris Causa).
The university stated that the award was “in recognition of your tremendous contributions in your chosen career to socio-economic development of Nigeria and the world at large.”
The letter invited Dodo to receive the honorary doctorate at the university’s second combined convocation ceremony scheduled for February 12, 2022. A subsequent letter dated January 20, 2022, also from the vice-chancellor, invited Dodo to the university’s convocation and to commission projects at the institution.
Significantly, the letter specifically listed the Faculty of Law Building among the projects Dodo was invited to commission. The letter also stated that three persons would receive honorary doctorate degrees during the convocation: Alhaji Ahmadu Adamu Mua’zu, Chief Innocent Chukwuma and ‘Dodo’.
Also, the second Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Abubakar Kundiri, recently eulogized Dodo, saying it was God that used him to establish the university, and further appreciated him for using his contacts, influence and also for financing trips for actualisation of the university.
“Sir, God used you to establish Federal University Wukari. You played a leading role. The late Baba Aku, Prof. Rasheed and Mr. Maiyaki of NUC have all attested to the role you played. You used your contacts, influence and also financed trips for actualization of the university,” Kundiri said.
Note The Sequence
The sequence of events is notable. In December 2021, the university’s Governing Council approved an honorary doctorate for Dodo. In January 2022, it invited him to commission its Faculty of Law building. In February 2022, the Southern Taraba Academics’ Forum (who should know better than all others) also presented him with a Special Award of Excellence, expressly citing his influence in the location of the federal university in Wukari.
Well Informed Account
Well informed accounts of how the university came to Taraba also differ materially from Bwacha’s version. According to them, Taraba and Yobe were the only two states in the North-east without a federal university at the time, meaning the institution could have been located in Yobe.
“Yobe and Taraba were the two states in the North East at the time without a Federal University, and so the University could even have gone to Yobe but for his very close friend, the Late Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi (Who was Minister of Education-State) and Governor Danbaba Suntai who collaborated with him in getting the University to Taraba and to Wukari,” they said.
That account identifies three elements of the process: the absence of a federal university in both Taraba and Yobe, the possibility that Taraba could have lost the institution to Yobe, and Dodo’s personal collaboration with the late Governor Suntai and the late Kenneth Gbagi, who was Minister of State for Education.
What We Know
The available evidence does not establish that Bwacha played any role whatsoever in the process. Neither does it conclusively resolve every contribution made by politicians, government officials or other stakeholders involved in the establishment and siting of the university.
What it does establish, however, is that Dodo’s role was not a claim that emerged only in the wake of Bwacha’s latest statement.
A formal letter from the Southern Taraba Academics’ Forum had already credited him with a role in the establishment of Federal University Wukari, while its chairman publicly stated at the award ceremony that Dodo’s “special influence” resulted in the location of the university in Wukari.
The records from Federal University Wukari provide an additional institutional dimension, with the university itself recognising Dodo through an honorary doctorate and inviting him to commission its Faculty of Law building.
The question therefore, is not simply whether Bwacha participated in the process It is simply that he played absolutely no role whatsoever and has on many occasion been rebuked in private and in public for his false claims calculated for political gain.
Bwacha’s account places him at the centre of the political process, saying Dodo only generated the idea and he sold it to Governor Suntai.
The contemporaneous accounts, however, place particular emphasis on Dodo’s influence, his collaboration with the governor and the then Minister of State for Education, and his contribution to the university after its establishment.
For the Southern Taraba Academics’ Forum, the contribution was significant enough to warrant a Special Award of Excellence. Its formal notification stated that Dodo was being recognised not only for his role in the establishment of the Federal University Wukari but also for providing academic materials for its Law Faculty.
Thus, while Bwacha has now publicly presented his version of the history of Federal University Wukari, the documentary trail shows that Dodo’s role in securing the institution for Wukari had already been formally acknowledged by an association of academics in Southern Taraba and recognised by the university itself.
The available records may not settle every aspect of the historical dispute, but they make one point clear: Dodo’s contribution to the establishment and development of Federal University, Wukari was publicly documented and recognised years before the latest social media controversy, and the same can’t be said about Senator Bwacha’s claim of contributing to its founding.
In all of these Mr. Dodo has maintained characteristic silence, having made it clear as far back as 2011 that it does not matter to him who claims credit for what God used him to do for Taraba state. That what matters and what is important is the fact of the establishment of the university and how it has enormously and positively impacted on Taraba state and its people and how it will continue do so.
Sunday Ehigiator wrote from Lagos…….
