Yakubu Dogara Defeats Gbajabiamila To Emerge Speaker Of House Of Reps

Honourable Yakubu Dogara has emerged as Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives of Nigeria, He represents Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa-Balewa federal constituency of Bauchi State. He is a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Hon. Yakubu Dogara was born to 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, some of which are mentioned below;
Committee Memberships

Between 2007 to 2011, 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.

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.

He also serves as the Secretary of the Board of Trustees and Legal Adviser to FAcE-PAM, an NGO operating in Bauchi State.