By Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan
How lucky could Senator Goje be – a free man in the claws of the EFCC. This is an added dimension to fraud forgiveness. They are simply negotiating away our collective patrimony plus the fact that this Grand Old Party, GOP, is fast becoming a receptacle or safe haven for fugitives. These are topics for another day. Suffice it to say that the GOP is simply using what it has to get what it wants – the dent on the regime’s anti-graft war, notwithstanding. At least, this Ranking Senator can now return to his seat as the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee with a peace of mind. We must congratulate the NASS for bringing about the best election of its principal officers so far. We salute President Buhari and the candidates for the way they went about it. We now have a NASS whose leadership is made up of consummate gentlemen.
We have observed elsewhere that in every Election Year, the National Assembly, NASS, becomes the epicenter of political intrigues, particularly in filling the principal offices in both Chambers.
People harp on the fact that the nation’s Constitution reserves no role for the political parties in the composition of these offices – at the theoretical level, that is. In actual practice, the invisible hands of the political parties can be felt all through the process.
Indeed, only an irresponsible leadership will feel unconcerned when any part of its house is on fire – in just the same way that no responsible parent stays aloof when the children are fighting. For all we know, a mother is only as happy as her saddest child.
We must hasten to say that the NASS, particularly the Senate, is made up of Aristocrats, men and women who have made it in life before coming to the Assembly. These people are largely already fulfilled and they are allergic to any outside interference.
To the Senators, for instance, politics is not another job for the boys. Their personally, their carriage and their comportment have perhaps some unintended consequences.
Quite often, there are cases where legislators up-turn the arrangements handed down to them by their party leadership. They do this in the name of asserting the independence of the legislature.
A new trend – the use of legislators-elect of one political party to destabilize the arrangements of an opposing party – crept into our political lexicon in 2011, when the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, used Hon. Aminu Tambuwal (then PDP/Sokoto) to scuttle the arrangement of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the speakership of the House of Representatives. That is what we call Tambuwalization.
Throughout the Seventh National Assembly, Tambuwal had what could pass for a split personality – he was PDP in name and in body; but for all intents and purposes, he was more ACN/APC than the National Chairman of the party.
Essentially, Tambuwalization bears close resemblance to the Open Primary, which was prevalent in the early history of some Western democracies as a way of picking candidates for elective positions.
Parties that adopted the open primaries had an open mind that since the office being sought was one in which the occupant would serve all members of the community, it made sense for all the registered voters in that community to participate in nominating the candidate.
With time, the open primaries became injurious to the parties that adopted them. Members of an opposing political party used the avenue to nominate weak candidates that could be easily defeated at the main election – call it dumping or what you will. The open primaries have since given way to closed primaries.
Once established, Tambuwalization became a good precedent in the hands of Senator Bukola Saraki and Hon. Yakubu Dogan and their co-travelers. For more than two months after the 2015 polls, Senator Rabiu Kwawkwaso (APC/Kano) was shouting to the high heavens that the National Assembly would be “Tambuwalized.” Who cared about the premonition of an impending danger? Alas, it happened!
The man with a broken nose will invariably spoil his mother’s cry. Instead of wishing his mother to “REST IN PEACE”, he would tell her to “REST IN PIN”. Perhaps unwittingly – but out of pure self-interest – President Muhammadu Buhari rocked his own boat in 2015.
The moment he won his own election, he cared less about the party and anyone else. The APC became an abandoned property. Buhari was “for everybody” and “for nobody” – an exercise in fake neutrality! Our President was deluded into the omnipotence of the office of President by his military adventurism of the past, unknown to him that there was a new dawn.
In the months and weeks leading to the inauguration of the NASS, the All Progressives Congress, APC, legislators-elect were left rudderless – like sheep without shepherds! Meanwhile, the PDP leadership kept its Legislators-elect intact while jealously guarding and guiding them.
In the end, the APC almost had as many aspirants to the office of Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives as the legislators-elect – everybody wanted to be everything. The end thereof was Tambuwalization made easy! The rest is now history. The two major parties are now even – each has received its due share of Tambuwalization!
Once beaten, twice shy. Buhari and his men had learnt their bitter lessons. This time around, Tambuwalization was truly lurking around, particularly in the Senate. Evidently, the former Governor of Gombe State, Senator Danjuma Goje, was the man to beat.
With his own solid support-base plus the waiting block of the PDP Senators-elect, where was the Yobe North man, Senator Ahmed Lawan, going to get the winning votes? Goje was already giving him a good run for his money.
Thank God, our President and his party had abandoned that pseudo neutrality policy. They saw it coming. But by the time Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State took Goje to Aso Rock and, as the Americans would say, they made him an offer he couldn’t reject, it was all over. That was the escape from Tambuwalization!
Did THE PUNCH Newspaper keep squealing on them? The two successive headlines after the Aso Rock visit put it most succinctly:
1. Senate Presidency: Goje withdraws, backs Lawan, after meeting Buhari….
2. ALLEGED N25 BILLION FRAUD: EFCC WITHDRAWS FROM GOJE’S CASE….
Properly juxtaposed, it was a classic case of the witch crying all night and in the morning, the baby died. Who is still looking for the source of the baby’s death?
How lucky could Senator Goje be – a free man in the claws of the EFCC. This is an added dimension to fraud forgiveness. They are simply negotiating away our collective patrimony plus the fact that this Grand Old Party, GOP, is fast becoming a receptacle or safe haven for fugitives.
These are topics for another day. Suffice it to say that the GOP is simply using what it has to get what it wants – the dent on the regime’s anti-graft war, notwithstanding. At least, this Ranking Senator can now return to his seat as the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee with a peace of mind.
We must congratulate the NASS for bringing about the best election of its principal officers so far. We salute President Buhari and the candidates for the way they went about it. We now have a NASS whose leadership is made up of consummate gentlemen.
We salute our friend, Gbaja – the new Chrislam in town – he enjoys the split personality. He has been seen as an Elder in a Surulere Church; and a Muslim in Abuja. It wasn’t also by accident that his nomination for the Speakership position was by a PDP member.
A good mixer, indeed! To justify his new Chrislam status, at inauguration, he was sworn in with the name Hakim Femi Gbajabiamila. We were too far to see whether he swore with the Holy Bible and/or the Holy Quran. The end still justifies the means. Congratulations!
However, it is not yet Uhuru. The ruling party must not be carried away by the euphoria of its new conquest. As the Igbo man would say, “ane nwe obodo enwe” – meaning that every community or settlement has its owners. The owners of the Senate are in the Senate – not outside it. They are in the different political parties. The present NASS will not be radically different from the immediate past one.
The relationship between the Legislature and the Executive is unavoidably adversary. The immediate-past Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, was essentially right, when he asserted that no Assembly anywhere in the world is carved out for a popularity contest…. Any Assembly that is praised by the Executive must have abandoned its primary role of representing the people.
This is not to say that the relationship between them must remain acrimonious. Between the two extremes of a hostile independence and a total surrender of the Assembly, falls a balance, which produces a healthy situation of mutual inter-dependence.
If we are heading for a healthy nation, those looking forward to a rift-free relationship between the Legislature and the Executive will be disappointed. The issues that unite the legislators are a lot more than those that divide them.
For instance, in spite of whatever leadership-mix exists in the NASS, the legislators will not drop the idea of their Constituency Projects, which President Buhari hates with passion. Under any leadership, this is a veritable source of controversy between the two branches of government.
The administration is happy that it has a NASS leadership that will give it an annual budget that will run from January to December. We are yet to see the magic wand that this new leadership will use in approving the Appropriation Bill before the end of the year if the President presents it in December – short of a rubber stamp!
We have always insisted that those who want to match the wet soil must learn to throw water ahead! An administration that wants an early budget approval must also submit the Appropriation Bill early. It can’t be done otherwise!
At the risk of repetition, we insist that the NASS should, as a matter of utmost priority, give this nation AN ACT FOR A BUDGET CYCLE which runs from early February, leading to the presentation of the Appropriation Bill to the NASS in August; and culminating in the President’s assent by mid-December of the year preceding that for which the budget is intended.
How else can they convince Nigerians that in spite of their outward appearance of disagreement and all the pretenses, that both the NASS and the Executive are not benefitting from the tardiness in the budgetary process? We are watching!
Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan is a public affairs analyst and former Chairman, Board of Directors, Edo Broadcasting Service. He can be reached at: joligien@yahoo.com.
