Insight Into Buhari’s Twin Dinner With Lawmakers
By Anule Emmanuel Now I understand the grievance of some members of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Since the intrigues about the choice of those who will take over the leadership of the Ninth National Assembly began shortly after the 2019 general elections, there have been deliberate attempts to get President Muhammad Bukhara deeply involved.The Ninth Assembly opens in June this year and stakeholders in the ruling party are not ready to take anything for granted and allow a repeat of the 2015 experience when the lawmakers had a field day and elected presiding officers of their choice.Both the current President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara emerged as leaders of the two chambers in the parliament against the wishes of their political party, (the APC). They later defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Saraki was returned unopposed as Senate President facilitated by the solid backing of a 49-member strong PDP caucus with unalloyed support from APC Senators from Zamfara, Sokoto, Adamawa, Kogi and Kwara states, knocking out Ahmed Lawan who was the preferred candidate of the party. Interestingly too, with the ‘give and take deal’ orchestrated by PDP and Saracen backed elements in the APC, Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP was also returned as Deputy President of the Senate, the first time a bipartisan leadership was enthroned in Nigeria’s Red Chamber. The drama inside the Senate at the time also robbed off negatively for the official candidate of the APC in the Green Chamber as Femi Gbajabiamila lost to Dogara who was elected speaker. No one was left in doubt that the ruling party structure and hierarchy, as well as its national leader, former Lagos State governor Ahmed Bola Tinubu, was solidly behind the candidature of Gbajabiamila. APC’s official candidate for the Deputy Speakership, Tahir Monguno had also lost to Lasun Yusuf of the PDP. The battle for the four presiding officers’ positions in the National Assembly therefore witnessed the APC losing to all the candidates backed by the opposition PDP.Sadly, the outcome of the election in both chambers established a frosty relationship that exists to date between the leadership of the executive and the legislature. What many Nigerians seem to forget easily is the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari as President-elect innocently laid the foundation for what played out in the parliament in 2015. I was among several other people who commended the President for his unique democratic posture of promising never to meddle into the NASS leadership contest.In a statement by Garb Shah then Director of Media & Publicity of APC Presidential Campaign few days before the President’s inauguration, Bukhara emphatically promised that he was willing to work with any leader of the Senate and Reps, irrespective of what part of the country he or she originated from. He explained that those who wanted him to interfere in the internal affairs of the parliament were still thinking in the past, forgetting that Change had truly come to Nigeria.Hear him out, “I am prepared to work with any leaders that the House or Senate selects,” General Bukhara said. “It doesn’t matter who the person is or where he or she is from. There is due process for the selection of leaders of the National Assembly and I will not interfere in that process. Nigeria has indeed entered a new dispensation,” he said. “My administration does not intend to repeat the same mistakes made by previous governments.Following the emergence of Saraki, Dogara and the other two principal officers, President Buhari did not fail to acknowledge that a constitutional process occurred in the election, he, however, wished the process had followed the initiative by the APC.For the APC and its National chairman, Adams Oshiomhole both the President’s posture at the time and the failure of the party to handle the intrigues of leadership selection in the National Assembly contributed significantly in thwarting the progress which the government would have made in delivering dividends of democracy to Nigerians in the last four years. The minister of Information Lai Mohammed at some point raised the concern that NASS under the current leadership, unfortunately, treated the executive with contempt.In his view, the 2016, 2017 and 2018 budgets for instance, were deliberately delayed by the lawmakers to frustrate the government. The same thing he said was with appointments, nominations and confirmations for key organisations that could move the government forward like the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC).What is certain at the moment is that the APC is not leaving anything to chance in ensuring that all its candidates emerge victorious during the election for the leadership of the ninth National Assembly. The party’s chairman has since embarked on vigorous lobbying of both returning and newly elected members in the green and red chambers to achieve this feat. One other major strategy adopted by comrade Oshiomhole and members of his National Working Committee (NWC) is to get the strong buy-in of President Bukhara and the presidency particularly, in form of an endorsement of the party’s preferred candidates.Securing the President’s blessing is necessary given the fact that the APC under Oshiomhole plans to even expand the battle frontiers into what can be best described as the winner takes all. Going forward, the game plan is to ensure that all strategic committees in the two chambers are headed entirely by members of the ruling party. As far as the party chairman is concerned, APC cannot afford to do business with the ’devil’ to survive at the parliament.Oshiomhole and members of the NWC of the APC in the last few weeks have led the lawmakers, (Senate and House), both old and new to President Bukhara at the presidential villa with the view to sealing the deal about the choice of Senator Ahmed Lawan for Senate presidency and Femi Gbajabiamila for the House Speakership. A few members of the party are however not taking likely this supposedly clandestine lobbying of the President by Oshiomhole and his group for these two candidates. One of the aggrieved members is former Senate Leader Ali Ndume who also wants to run for the office of the Senate president. House spokesman Abdulrazak Namdas (APC, Adamawa), Ahmed Wase (APC, Plateau), Umar Bago (APC, Niger) and Dr. John Idyer (APC, Benue) are also challenging Gbajabiamila for the Speakership.Since the dinner with the Senators and members of the House of Representatives, President Buhari has yet to openly endorse anyone. No member of the APC at the moment can categorically claim to know what position the President has so far taken. The President at both meetings with the lawmakers, however, urged them to embrace unity and stand by the position of the party. While covering events at both the dinner with the senators and the House members, it was not difficult to see signs of unhappiness on the faces of the lawmakers as they emerged from the inner rooms. As far as they are concerned, presenting any candidate before the President while coercing the opinions remained an unfruitful exercise.The general expectation is that as the APC strives never to make the mistakes of 2015, it must be seen to have worked out an equitable zoning arrangement based on clear, identifiable and acceptable criteria understood by all players to cater for all the geopolitical zones. It is interesting to hear that the party has zoned the Senate presidency to the North East which produced the highest number of votes in the 2019 general elections. I am among those who still do not understand why the position of the Speakership is being zoned to the South West and not the North Central which also polled significant votes, in fact, third after North West and North East during the presidential election. It makes no sense for the South West holding the position of Vice President and at the same time, producing the next speaker in the National Assembly.You may pardon my position on this matter, but it is one of those numerous and contentious issues of disagreement among the lawmakers which, if not properly handled by both the presidency and the APC, could throw up another 2015 experience during the selection process. Another sensitive issue is that of religion which most people have always pretended to avoid. As it stands today, one particular religion in both chambers may end up dominating as against the spirit of fair and equitable distribution of power which the country has witnessed in the past. Despite these intrigues however, the most important thing we desire is an independent National Assembly that works to make laws for the welfare of all Nigerians and the development of all parts of the country.https://www.newtelegraphng.com/2019/04/insight-into-buharis-twin-dinner-with-lawmakers/
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