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.
