VITAL THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT DOGARA, THE NEW SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPS.

By Kola Popson

From all indications, Hon. Yakubu Dogara has emerged the next Speaker of Federal House of Representatives.

He is presently being sworn in as the new Speaker of the 8th National Assembly having scored 182 votes against Hon. Femi Gbajamiamila who scored 174 votes.

In a matter of time, Hon. Dogara will be officially declared the new Speaker of the House of Representatives. While awaiting the official declaration of Dogara as the new Speaker, Naijahottestgist would like to make reference to his background.

Hon. Yakubu Dogara, representing Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa-Balewa federal constituency of Bauchi State at the House of Representatives, was born to the families of Yakubu Ganawuri and Saratu Yakubu on 26 December 1967.

He began his education in 1976 at Gwarangah Primary School in Bauchi. Upon graduation in 1982, he proceeded to the Bauchi Teachers’ College for his secondary education, and obtained a Grade II Teachers’ Certificate in 1987. In 1988, he went on to the University of Jos, Plateau State, from where he obtained a Bachelor of Law (LLB Hons.) degree in 1992.

From 1992 – 1993, Dogara was a student at the Lagos campus of the Nigerian Law School and was called to the bar in 1993. He later obtained a Masters (LLM) in International Commercial Law at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland.

Dogara also attended a course on Managing and Leading Strategic Change in 2006, the Oxford University Course on Negotiation in 2013, and a course on Leadership in Crisis at the Harvard Kennedy School in 2014.

He first took up employment in April 1988 as a teacher at the ATBU Staff School in Bauchi. In 1993, during the mandatory National Youth Service Corps, he served at NCCF, Akwa Ibom state. Upon completion of the NYSC programme in 1994, he went into private legal practice until 2005 when he was appointed Special Assistant to the Minister of State for Transport.
He held this position until 2006, when he decided to contest to represent the Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa-Balewa constituency at the Federal House of Representatives. His bid proved successful and he has been a member of the House since 2007.

Dogara has been a member of the Federal House of Representatives since 2007. His legislative interests include tenancy, regulating monopolies, company law, and intellectual property. He has sponsored many bills and undertaken several assignments.

Between 2007 to 2011, Hon. Dogara chaired two House committees, namely the House Committee on Customs and Excise, and the House Services Committee. During this period, he was also a member of the House committees on Judiciary, Capital Markets and Institutions, Foreign Affairs, Rural Development and Power, among others.

During the current 2011-2015 dispensation, he has served as Chairman of the committee on House Services and Welfare, and as a member of others including Judiciary, Land Transport, Labour, Employment and Productivity, Steel Development, and Legislative Budget and Research.

Hon. Dogara has also served on panels and adhoc committees such as Chairman, Nigerian Customs Service Probe Panel; Chairman, Adhoc Committee on Composition and Pigmentation of Cement in Nigeria; Chairman, House Adhoc Committee on Disbursement of Public Funds by the Bank of Industry; Member, House Contract Scam Probe Panel; Member, Hijack of fishing vessels and Maritime Security Probe Panel; Member, House Adhoc Committee on Crude Oil Theft; Member, House Adhoc Committee on Constitutional Review among others.

In 2010, Dogara sponsored the Corporate Manslaughter and the Data Protection Bill. These were followed by Federal Competition Commission Bill in 2011.

In the same vein, it was Hon. Dogara who sponsored a bill in 2013 for an act to amend section 143 of the Nigerian Constitution in order to make the process of removal of the President and the Vice President on charges of misconduct less ambiguous. In the same year, he also sponsored bills on Public Interest Disclosure and Hire Purchase.

Dogara is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, the International Bar Association, the Nigerian Institute of Management, the Chartered Institute of Mediators and Conciliators, the Cyber Bar Association and the Social Policy Association. He is also an associate member of the Institute of Environment Management and Assessment, and the World Jurist Association, among others.