True to its words, PDP has shown maturity in the election processes in the two chambers of the National Assembly. When the party announced that it had no intention of fielding candidates for the two top positions, I thought the party was speaking tongue in cheek. I know PDP hardly fulfilled a promise. Lo and behold! PDP has fulfilled a promise.
If PDP hadn’t shown magnanimity in the process, one of its senators and one of its representatives would have gotten away with the position of the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. When the APC senators boycotted (or tactically withdrew from) the Senate Chamber for a “meeting with Mr President”, the PDP could have mobilised its 49 senators (who constituted a quorum for electing the Senate President) to elect one of their own. They could have betrayed Saraki too.
The same scenario would have also played out had PDP wanted to be its treacherous self. While APC’s frontline candidates, Yakubu Dogara and Femi Gbajabiamila were slugging it out internally, PDP had all the chance to backstab Dogara and nominate one of its own at the eleventh hour. It would have been most disastrous and embarrassing to APC. It would have been the highest mortification the party has suffered.
APC should have learnt a lesson that the imposition of leaders in the National Assembly is almost always an act of futility. It hardly sails through. And even if it sees the light of the day, it hardly lasts.
In 1999, when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed former governor of Imo State, Chief Evan(s) Enwerem on senators as their president, the leadership didn’t last long. The senators were unhappy with the late Enwerem’s alliance with the Executive. A few months after, the senators, led by Khairat Abdulrazak Gwadabe, collected signatures for Enwerem’s impeachment when he went to see off President Obasanjo at the airport for a foreign trip. As the presidential jet took off, the senators impeached Enwerem and elected their preferred choice, late Dr Chuba Okadigbo. One of the reasons adduced for Enwerem’s impeachment was the discrepancies in his name, as some of his certificates were bearing “Evans” while others bore “Evan”.
The imposition of Senator Adolphus Wabara as Senate President by Obasanjo in 2005 was another good example. And when the senators saw opportunity, they struck against Wabara.
The anointment of Ibrahim Salisu Buhari as Speaker in 1999 did not also bear an eventful end. The aggrieved parties unearthed falsifications in the young Speaker’s education and age records. Buhari was immediately impeached. The ephemerality of the wind of imposition also took away ex-hairdresser Patricia Etteh in 2007 after serving for a few months. The imposition of Mulikat Adeola-Akande didn’t scale through as the lawmakers teamed up with the then opposition APC to kill the dream of the PDP. The lawmakers rather supported Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.
I see no basis for APC to be threatening fire and brimstones over the Tuesday outcome. APC should have learnt from history. The party should take solace in the fact that what happened to it was not novel. It did the same to PDP when it was the ruling party and had overwhelming majority in the House. It’s simply a payback in its own coin.
APC’s Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed’s statements before and after the elections were very embarrassing. Initially, I suspected Lai was lying when he announced that the president had invited members of the National Assembly to a meeting at the same time the National Assembly was to be ready for inauguration.
But Senior Special Assistant to the president on Media, Garba Shehu has confirmed that President Buhari had truly interfered in the matter, despite his earlier stance not to meddle in the affairs of the legislature. Confirming Buhari’s involvement, Shehu said the president had indeed attempted to see the parliamentarians before the election.
In speaking on Channels TV on Wednesday, Shehu said, “I am talking about the clerk, Governor Saraki; the key characters in all of these had sufficient information directly or indirectly coming to them that the President will be meeting the party members and the party chairman was present on the ground. Assumption would have been that every loyal and committed party member would have presented themselves to the party and to their President. That did not happen yesterday (Tuesday)”.
Already there was a proclamation from President Buhari that the National Assembly would be inaugurated by 10:00 am on June 9, 2015.
But why did Buhari make a U-turn?
Twitter: @Jafsmohd
