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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The scenario playing out ahead of the composition of the principal officers of the 10th National Assembly has continued to raise questions on the existence of peace or otherwise in the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Critical observers argue that it does not seem the ruling party has learnt anything from its history. In their calculation, there are visible signs that literally, thunder might likely strike twice at the same spot over the National Assembly leadership due to the administrative lapses threatening to cost the APC another opportunity of spearheading the composition of the legislative leadership.
As it stands now, unless a quick intervention comes from the party’s national leadership, the National Working Committee (NWC), to arrest the ugly trends currently building up to wreck the party, there may be a repeat of the 2015 ugly incident when the party’s leadership blew up the chances of installing its desired leadership in the 8th Assembly.
The event which played out in a dramatic style proved to be a costly error from the John Odigie-Oyegun-led leaders of the party that fixed a meeting with members of the party’s newly elected legislators at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, same day the election for the principal officers of the 8th Assembly was conducted.
The outcome of that administrative error was regrettable and costly, as the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration continued to heap all the blames of every of its failure and travails on the unwanted leadership of the National Assembly.
Little wonder, the Comrade Adams Oshiomhole-led NWC did not leave anything to chance when it deployed all the machinery into action to ensure the leadership of the 9th Assembly reflects the aspirations and wishes of the party’s leaders and members.
But, thunder seems to likely strike again at the same spot in what appeared like a repeat of the incident of the 8th Assembly with the current chaotic situation witnessed in the build-up to the composition of the principal officers of the 10th National Assembly considering the interests from several elected legislators.
Aspirants from virtually all the geopolitical zones have indicated interest and even pursued with vigour the resolve to contest for the vacant positions at both chambers of the National Assembly without any clear direction or roadmap from the party’s leadership on which zone should rightly produce the legislative leaders.
From the North West to the South East, North Central, South South and North East, it has been celebration of confusion and rat race interests displayed in the endless jostle for the position for understandable reason that APC currently controls a simple majority at both legislative chambers.
It has become even more chaotic and worrisome that Muslim legislators, in fragrant disregard to the vexatious Muslim-Muslim presidential and vice-presidential joint ticket of the party, have also thrown their hearts into the rings. Many pundits have accused them of sacrificing religious equity and balancing of the political landscape of the country as a secondary consideration.
In the South East geopolitical zone alone, heavyweights like the former governor of Abia State and current Senate Chief Whip, Senator Orji Uzor-Kalu, apparently the most qualified and favoured aspirant, former APC National Organising Secretary, Osita Izunaso and the governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, have all indicated interest to occupy the position.
In the South South, North West, North East and North Central, former governor of Akwa-Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, incumbent Senate President, Ahmad Lawan and Barau Jubril among others have all staked claims to wrest the legislative ticket.
To strengthen their determination and seriousness, the aspirants have intensified lobbying, networking, bribing in both cash and materials, making juicy offers as mouth-watering as SUV Prado Jeep in addition to promise of chairmanship of spicy committee in addition to deployment of all manners of underhand tactics to woo fellow legislators, the camp of President-elect, the presidency and inquisitively the leadership of the ruling party.
While all these high-level intrigues went unabated, the national leadership of the party, the NWC, under the headship of Abdullahi Adamu, has maintained disturbing loud silence, officially saying little or nothing, allowing the prospects of zoning the positions to ensure sanity prevails to fester on the realm of speculation.
Strangely, not even the repeated alarms and panic buttons from a NWC member and North-West zonal chairman, Salihu Moh Lukman, could jolt or pressurise the party’s headship to convene an emergency meeting of the relevant organs to chart a course and arrest further degeneration of the situation.
Concerned individuals, party leaders and sponsored interest groups have in official and unofficial manner warned the party’s leadership to quickly intervene before the minority opposition legislators conspire to wrest the ticket from the ruling party despite its control of the majority.
And rattled by the potpourri of interests from the elected legislators across ethno-religious divides jostling for the positions, an association, under the umbrella of APC Coalition of Support Groups, last week petitioned the party’s leadership, urging it to consider zoning the Senate President specifically to the South East.
The coalition also pleaded with the NWC to place emphasis on character profile, experience, capacity, and competence as yardstick for settling for whoever wants to superintend over the senate of the 10th Assembly.
“For a smooth democratic process; there is a need for the protection of nascent democracy which is hinged on the principle of Federal Character as provided in the constitution of Nigeria that recognises and promotes inclusivity of all groups in the country into public offices.
“By compliance to this provision, the peaceful co-existence and national security, which is the bedrock of progress and development of our nation, is guaranteed. Without being subservient to primordial argument of state, tribal, religious, regional considerations, emphasis should be placed on character profile, experience, capacity, and competence.
“For the 10th Assembly, the aforementioned should be the yardstick to determine who the senate president becomes. As members of the NWC, paramount in who becomes the senate president, should be a commitment to party loyalty, capacity for performance, and track record of service in party administration.
“While not objecting to the emotional argument of geopolitical consideration, it behoves on the NWC to lean on the balance of justice and equity, and insecurity challenges to concede the senate president position to the South East geopolitical zone, where undoubtedly character and competence is remarkably in abundance.
“Only recently, the South East political zone has been overheated by non-inclusivity in principal elective appointments which the NWC can redress by taking a proper and judicious decision on the South East Senate Presidency,” the coalition petitioned.
However, the thinking of many political analysts is that despite the appeals, the NWC is yet to convene any formal meeting to resolve the way forward to approaching and handling the issue. The situation of anomie within the party concerning the leadership of the 10th Assembly, according to analysts, could be likened to a man whose house is on fire but who preferred to chase a fleeing rat.
Truly, the uneasy calm pervading the leadership of the ruling party over the NASS leadership is understandable. According to the party’s former Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, their hands are tied having compromised the zoning arrangements of the party previously.
Nabena, in a chat with Daily Sun, argued that he cannot understand why the party’s Chairman, who is a product and beneficiary of zoning arrangement, could sacrifice it at the altar of selfishness in endorsing Ahmad Lawan as the party’s consensus presidential candidate on the eve of its presidential primary.
The party’s spokesperson said; “I have made it clear that the day the National Chairman violated the agreement on zoning arrangements by endorsing Lawan as the anointed presidential candidate, he created a faulty foundation in the party.
“Nobody is going to listen or honour whatever arrangement the party’s leadership has about zoning of the position of the principal officers of the National Assembly because the National Chairman has already set a bad precedence.
“We should bear in mind that the National Assembly is a different arm of government. The legislators should be allowed to handle their affairs themselves. Again, the party has already committed zoning error in the current dispensation by endorsing the zoning of two important positions to persons from the same state.
“Both the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, and the Speaker House of Representatives, Femi Ghajabiamila, came from Lagos State. It is only recently that Vice President Osinbajo moved his polling unit to Ogun State. I can tell you that no elected legislator is going to respect any zoning arrangement coming from the party’s leadership.
“What will play out is that the party will not have total control of the legislators because the chairman, who is a beneficiary of zoning, bungled the initial arrangements on the eve of the presidential primary. What is also clear is that the party’s leadership will find it difficult to wriggle out of the situation before the members of the National Assembly will take their destiny into their hands.
“For me, therefore, the party should not dabble into the sensitive issue of determining who emerges as the principal officers of the 10th Assembly. I am sure that the legislators will not even listen to the party.”
But notwithstanding the perception of the party’s former spokesperson, Lukman, while urging his fellow national leaders to intervene, expressed worries over the ugly trend.
He lamented that apart from the development clearly negating national unity and disrespecting Nigerians, the aspirants are neither concerned about the security and well-being of Nigeria nor are they disturbed about factors that could erode the electoral viability of the APC.
Specifically decrying that the desperation for the leadership of 10th Assembly has been reduced to cash-and-carry, the former Director-General of the APC Progressive Governors Forum (PGF) wondered how APC elected representatives could descend so low to be using unethical methods of cash-and-carry to solicit support for their aspirations.
“The two senators-elect who are alleged to be involved in such unethical methods are both Muslims from the North-West. Conscious that APC has already produced two Muslims as President-elect and Vice President-elect, it should be very clear that any person whose aspiration for the position of Senate President, being the number three highest ranking position in the Federal Government, who is a Muslim, will not mean well for Nigeria and will be working to undermine the electoral viability of APC as a political party.
“Any Muslim aspiring for the position of Senate President has no respect for both the constitutions of Nigeria and the APC. This is because Chapter II, Section 14(3) of the Nigerian constitution clearly outlined that ‘the composition of the Federal Government or any of its agencies and the conduct of its affairs shall be carried out in such a manner as to reflect the federal character of Nigeria and the need to promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty, thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or in any of its agencies,” he argued.
Condemning the extreme anxiety of the legislators, Lukman alleged that; “there are speculations that some of them are bribing party leaders with huge amounts of money to stop the party from zoning the positions. There are also disturbing reports from House of Representatives members-elect that one aspirant for the position of Speaker from the North-East apart from bribing members-elect with huge amounts of money is also offering jeeps to members-elect if they will commit to electing him as the Speaker. This has reduced the contest for the leadership of 10th Assembly to cash-and-carry.
“Besides, given that both the two persons allegedly involved in this cash-and-carry approach to mobilising support for their emergence as Senate President are Muslims, it will be gross insensitivity to the peaceful co-existence of the country and disrespectful to Nigerians to allow them to continue to aspire for that position,” he warned.
On the attitude of the NWC, Lukman noted that; “with all these worrisome developments, the passive and almost unresponsive calmness of members of the APC NWC led by Adamu is giving credence to the speculation that some of these cash-and-carry aspirants for a leadership position in the 10th Assembly may have to bribe the NWC not to initiate actions to zone positions in the leadership of the 10th Assembly.
“Otherwise, why is the NWC unable to convene meetings of organs of the party to invoke Article 13.4(vi) of the APC constitution, which directs the NWC to ‘propose electoral guidelines and regulations governing the conduct of elections to party offices at all levels, and procedure for selecting party candidates for elective offices?
“It is very disturbing and highly unacceptable that something as sensitive as electoral guidelines and regulations for electing leaders of the 10th Assembly will be left to public speculations. At a time when opposition political parties are practically taken over by combinations of religious bigots and political opportunists who will go to any length to manufacture lies aimed at manipulating gullible citizens to support them, we can’t allow the contest for leadership of the 10th Assembly to continue unregulated.
“Everything must be done to mobilise all committed party leaders and members to call to order all APC elected representatives aspiring for positions in the leadership of the 10th Assembly,” he appealed.
Equally making a similar appeal, a party chieftain, Osita Okechukwu, urged all the stakeholders to wait for an appropriate zoning convention from the party’s leadership.
“My candid view is that the role of the national leadership of our great is immense and critical. It is immense and critical in the sense that there is no provision for independent candidates in the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended.
“This means that our president-elect, Bola Tinubu, elected governors and legislators, under our platform must, as a matter of urgent importance, consult and or listen to the party leadership on issues like zoning convention as the ligament binding our plural society together, in ensuring the fine tenets of equity, fairness and natural justice are observed,” he noted.
But the solution still looks like a mirage as the continued absence of the national chairman and the national secretary, Iyiola Omisore, has stalled the convention of the meeting of relevant organs to discuss and resolve the zoning arrangement.
Confirming that their absence was responsible for the delay on the zoning, a member of the NWC told Daily Sun that there is no way a decision would be taken without a properly convened NWC meeting.
“Zoning of the leadership of the principal officers of the 10th Assembly is a sensitive issue that requires the involvement and input of the NWC. But, as worrisome as it may sound, there has not been a properly convened meeting of the NWC since the conclusion of the presidential election on February 25.
“It is really a thing of concern because there is no solution at sight since both the chairman and secretary are currently not around to convene the meeting where decisions concerning zoning of the principal officers of the 10th Assembly will be discussed and resolved.
“Everything is at a standstill for now. We have been reduced to spectators on a sensitive issue we are supposed to play a critical role. It is not surprising seeing all manners of legislators-elect jostling for the position without recourse to the input of the national leadership of our party,” the NWC member lamented.
