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Iheanacho Nwosu, Abuja
Leader of Abia State caucus (2003-2005), Senator Chris Adighije has insisted that the Southeast deserves the position of Senate President in the 9th Assembly.
In this interview, he declared that the minimum position that will be acceptable to the zone is the Deputy Senate President. The erudite scholar also spoke on other issues, including the outcome of last election, claims by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that it won the presidential poll and the call for the amendment of the Electoral Act.
Your party is talking tough over what should be the shape of the leadership of the 9th Assembly. What do you make of the trajectory being taken by APC on the matter?
Clearly, all over the world, the majority party forms the principal officers. Of course, for smooth running of the government, it is better for the majority of the people in the party to align with government, particularly in a country like Nigeria where you need to have good understanding between the Legislature and the Executive. Even though they are independent, there has to be a measure of cooperation and understanding for the good governance of the people. The last time in 2015 when the PDP suddenly found itself into government and they emerged as Deputy Senate President, it was odd in a lot of ways because there are certain issues the caucus of the ruling party will like to discuss outside the parliament that will be in the interest of the manifesto of the party. The manifesto of the party is well understood by the party members and they are in a better position to carry it out. That is why I advocate always that the majority party ought to produce principal officers.
That cooperation between the legislature and the executive, does it also mean the executive determining who will be the principal officers?
The executive cannot determine who will be the principal officers. Of course, we are dealing with men who are independent minded, but they are party men first and foremost. But there is need to show equity in the distribution of these offices, because that is what is likely to create some anomaly. If the spread of principal offices is not equitable enough; if it does not take into consideration the tribes, the religion and the nature of our people, then that will be where the problem can come. Provided there is equity, then I believe the party elected members will comply with the party. But the party has to ensure equity in the distribution of offices.
As a chieftain of the party from the Southeast are you comfortable with the zoning of the Senate President and other offices by the party?
Anybody who is trying to do anything that will exclude the Southeast in the distribution of key offices will clearly not be fair. The Southeast mostly made up of Igbo are formidable part of the tripod that forms Nigeria. The Southeast in 2015 in the APC government appeared to have been shortchanged and everybody was complaining that Southeast did not vote for that government. But you can see in this latest election result that the Southeast has performed very well. Whereas in 2015, the percentage vote for Mr. President was less than 10 per cent, this time, it’s approaching 40 per cent. So, the Southeast has come up strongly and it must be seen as a formidable leg of the tripod. They have the Yoruba, the Hausa and the Igbo. This time, I believe that the minimum that the Southeast should get should be the Deputy Senate President because the North takes the Senate President, then East should have the Deputy Senate President. The North by this time, I mean the Northeast. Since Mr. President, Buhari is from the Northwest, I will consider the Northeast for the Senate President. The Southwest has the Vice President. So, the East should take number four position. Ordinarily, if we have to follow the tripod, the East should take the Senate President, failing which the minimum they should aim at is the Deputy Senate President for equity and justice and to let the Igbo have a sense of belonging, so that we don’t continue to behave as people who lost the war. Even in the last dispensation when the Deputy Senate President came from the PDP, it still went to the Southeast. The Senate President had been in the East in the early life of this republic. Now, if we lose even the position of the Senate President, it means we are still taking steps backwards and the East will not react kindly to this.
What do you mean by the zone not not reacting kindly to an arrangement that will not give it either Senate President or Deputy?
I don’t want to give you the precipitated interpretation, but I’m saying that for equity, whoever is considering anything will not give the East anything less than the Deputy Senate President. That means we will remain where we were in 2015 because in 2015, the Southeast produced the Deputy Senate President.
But we have also seen arguments that only few people won elections on the APC ticket in the Southeast. Are you not bothered about number?
How many seats did Obasanjo win in Yorubaland to be president of the country? The Southeast has done much better than in 2015 and should be encouraged. We should not be seen to be moving backward. It is totally unacceptable to our people. It’s simply a matter of moral and logic. You can’t exclude a group like the Igbo from the government. It is totally unacceptable. What will be the reason? in Abia, for instance, we’ve produced a Senator. In Imo, we’ve produced a Senator. Rochas was announced, even though he has not got his Certificate of Return. We also have some people that won in the House of Representatives across the states. So, APC should not treat the Southeast as if they are not part of it. They are a strong vibrant part of it. The presidential election showed that Mr. President scored more than 25 per cent in almost all the states in the Southeast.
As the leader of caucus of APC in Abia, would you say the party performed to your satisfaction in terms of other positions it contested?
I keep talking about 2015. Our people felt shortchanged in 2015 and it was very difficult to do much better than we have done because our people still were wondering whether the APC still really wants the Southeast. So, for me, our performance shows that we have done very well against all odds and we should be encouraged to do better. That is why I’m saying that the Southeast has to have something to show for it and that is why we cannot be pushed backwards from where we are supposed to be.
Last time, it was speculated that the Senate President was zoned to the Southeast in 2015. But we were given the excuse of nobody won the Senate from the Southeast. Now, we have two people who have emerged in the Senate. So, why don’t you leave the Senate Presidency to the Southeast or at worst, leave them to have the Deputy Senate President, for equity and justice. There is no way you can concentrate Senate President in the North, President of the country in the North, Deputy Senate President in the North. Everybody will laugh at that. It doesn’t show fairness at all.
The Southeast complained last time that both ministerial and key appointments were all from the North, do you see the situation changing?
President has spoken about an inclusive government. That’s what he has promised this country. For me, that interprets that the Southeast and all the zones of the country will have their fair share. That is my interpretation of inclusiveness. So, it cannot be like it was in 2015. There will be no excuse for this.
The PDP has continued to insist that it won the last election judging from what it said was in the INEC’s databank. What do you make of such claims?
People lose elections and they fantasize. But when somebody loses election, there should be a limit of talking in a way that will set the country ablaze. The elections have been adjudged to be substantially fair. If they are talking about manipulation, it’s only where APC won that people talk about manipulation, where PDP won, nobody is talking about manipulation. Even the supplementary elections, you’ve seen the way they have gone. In Kano, people are talking about manipulation, but nobody is talking about manipulation in Sokoto.
Would you say you are proud of what happened in Kano regarding the violence unlike what was seen in Sokoto?
Nobody likes violence. I cannot preach violence. I’m not a violent person. But the important thing is that we have INEC and the results, you win in some places and lose in some places. You can’t win throughout the country. So, when you lose, you should allow those who have won to live. It’s live and let’s live. As for the details of what happened in Kano, I wasn’t in Kano. We don’t know who to hold responsible, just like we are waiting for what is happening in Rivers State. Now, the courts have come in and they have agreed that elections should go on in Adamawa State. All across the country, there are hiccups here and there, but I think substantially, the elections have gone on free and fair.
Key international observers like the US and EU have faulted the election and said it fell below the global standard. Are you saying that those observes are not reflecting what transpired during the election?
That is why we have a safety valve. The courts are there and whoever is aggrieved should go to tribunal. Nobody is saying that election is hundred per cent perfect. It’s not perfect anywhere, but the important thing is that it’s substantially reasonable, tolerable, unless the advocates are asking for total cancellation. I can see that PDP has even won more states this time than they did in 2015. For me, that is work in progress and Nigerians should learn to be patient and give INEC opportunity to improve and maybe from the results of the elections now, we will look at the electoral laws more closely. It’s work in progress. We should allow this four years to just come and go and people plan for 2023.
What do you make of claims that the election is a step down from 2015 instead of a step up?
When the dust settles, we can talk about it. But right now, people are feeling the pain. People who lost will say it was very bad. People who won will say it’s very good. But let the dusts settle and we begin to find that it’s neither here nor there; it’s substantially reasonable.
You talked about the need to amend the Electoral Act to ensure that the next election is much better. The reason given by the president last time was that the time was too close to the elections and that it might confuse INEC and the people. Are there really few other things you would want accommodated in that Electoral Act, given our experience in this last election?
There are quite a lot. You know practice makes perfect. The chairman of INEC was the one that even raised the issue of asking for amendment early enough to give INEC opportunity to prepare. As far as I’m concerned, there are certain things that need to be looked into like consolidating the card reader and the transmission of results. There has to be some improvement on that. There has to be a better modernized way to transmit results because at the polling point, it’s usually peaceful. Problem comes at polling station, going towards the collation point. So, there has to be some kind of amendment of the law that will ensure direct transmission of results from the voting point to the collation centre, not just at the local government level, but at the national level, so that when you have transmission in that way, it will be difficult for anybody to tamper with the results. I’m even looking at a situation where we can improve on the fact that probably we would not even need polling officers, supervisors and collation officers. There should be a way to step up the electronic transmission of results and reduce the number of people that are involved, reduce the exposure and risks of people carrying results from one centre to the other. Those are the areas I think the lawmakers may be looking at as soon as possible.
Before the election, we had APC leaders promising that they will support the Presidency to come to the Southeast. But so far, the body language seems to be changing. Just few months after the election, we’ve seen some APC leaders arguing more for the Southwest than for the Southeast. What is your take?
Whoever is talking about Southwest being the next group to go for presidency is talking to himself. I did say in my opening remarks that Nigeria stands on a tripod. That tripod is the North made up of Hausa Fulani, The West made up of the Yoruba and the East made up of the Igbo originally. The issue of South-south and the Southeast, of course, you know that we’ve never talked about South-south Nigeria before. We used to talk about the East, the West and the North. We know that the North has had its fair share, the West has had its fair share and the East ought to have its fair share. But the Easterners must work hard for it because power is not given. Power is taken and that is why we in the East must come together right now and begin to plan for 2023. It is when we open up our wings that people will begin to go into it to check whether they can shake us up and we crumble. The East must come together because it is our due, it is our right and it is our turn. I believe that anybody who is saying that there is any likelihood of the Southeast not making it is talking to himself. The Southeast has paid its dues in the development of this country in every aspect. The Southeast paid the penalty to have Nigeria remain as one and, therefore, we have to be given the opportunity for the first time to take number one seat in this country. Anybody who is thinking otherwise is probably trying to be unfair and, of course, even God Himself will not be happy with that.
We’ve seen severally where people talk about the outgoing Senate not being the type of Senate they wanted. Do you subscribe to claims that this incumbent Senate has failed?
I will like to say that the outgoing Senate performed within the limits it had. It had its limits and they performed to the best of their ability. But it could be better and that’s why we’re saying the Senate should look inwards in choosing their principal officers. The Senate should not be in war mood. Independence does not mean to show strength. Independence means to read the mood of the nation and to make laws and act in a way that the interest of the people will be paramount. If this translates in cooperation with the executive or reducing friction between the National Assembly and the Executive, it runs both ways. But the sanctity and the independence of the National Assembly as the legislature must be preserved. But you don’t preserve that at the expense of antagonizing yourself with the executive; neither should the executive also exert unnecessary pressure on the legislature. It’s a cooperation that is important and, therefore, we need to have patriotic Nigerians sitting at the National Assembly and working in close consonance with the executive and the judiciary for this country to go to the next level that is prosperity and the dignity of man.
Why is it that successive administrations have always wanted its lackeys to head the National Assembly?
We are going through a learning curve. I do not expect that the Senate or the National Assembly would allow the executive to pick the principal officers. But what we believe will happen is that, of course, the people who are going there are established and they have independence of mind. But definitely, it will be within a context. You don’t expect the minority party to lord it over the majority. That’s not democracy. It’s the majority that will have its way. The minority can have its say. So, I expect that from the APC that has the majority in the Senate will emerge the Senate President and the Deputy Senate President and so forth. All we are saying is that the spread must be equitable and fair and must involve all corners of the country in an equitable manner. The Southeast in fact should be overcompensated because of what happened to them last time. The Southeast should be prominent in the minds of those who are making the appointments so that the Southeast will belong to the system. That is why they have performed reasonably well during this exercise.
Between National Assembly and executive who is really to blame for this lateness in the passage of the budget?
Where is the budget right now and when was it deposited at the National Assembly? I believe that the budget was deposited in November and it’s still in the National Assembly by the end of March. So, where do we put the blame? It’s simple. The budget got to the National Assembly towards the end of last year and it’s still in the National Assembly towards the end of March. So, who is holding it? That is why we are pleading that this National Assembly that is coming should be able to work hand in hand, not under. They should work side by side and cooperate with the executive for the benefit of the people. It’s the masses that are suffering now. Finally , let me go back to the issue of sharing of offices in the National Assembly , the APC is well advised to ensure equity and fairness in the distribution of offices in the National Assembly, so as to project the East. The present result we see is that PDP has made incursion in the West, they have taken over Oyo State and Osun State is shaky from the point of view of the tribunal. Ondo State is having its own problems. PDP has taken over Sokoto State. They have gone to Bauchi. They have also virtually taken over Adamawa State from what we are seeing. Therefore, the APC should do everything possible to raise the situation in the East because the East, comparatively has done marvelously well between 2015 and 2019, moving from a position of five per cent in the vote for the president to almost 40 per cent. So, the East should be encouraged by getting its own fair share of offices that are to be distributed. Especially, the East should get the position of the Senate President or at least the Deputy Senate President.
