Contradiction is the second name of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Remarkably, the party is at home with the middle name. It does not give a hoot about what it is called, really, or for that matter, what the larger public think of it. As it seems, the party thrives on glaring contradictions and double standard.
Come to think of it, why should APC care about public perception of its ways? After a disastrous eight years of its reign over Nigeria, during which period the country came virtually unstuck, courtesy of Muhammadu Buhari’s ineptitude and divisive tendencies, the party has found itself still sitting in the presidency. It will also take control of the National Assembly, as well, today. So why should it bother changing its ways?
The 10th National Assembly will be inaugurated mid this morning. A major aspect of the commencement will be the election of presiding officers for the bi-cameral legislature. The National Assembly, under normal circumstances, is a powerful engine of governance in a representative democracy. The Constitution assigned the legislature ample powers to put the executive in check, being constituted by directly elected representatives of the constituent parts of the country. Sadly, it has often not turned out as planned. The leadership of the National Assembly, such as in the 9th Assembly that just ended, elected, either for lack of will or for gross compromises, to simply wrap itself up and submit to the executive, retaining as it were mere ceremonials that ruffled no feathers at the Presidency. Nigeria has been worse for the abdication.
The leadership of the 10th National Assembly that will emerge today, still under APC, may yet emerge worse than the 9th. The omens are there. For one, the leadership of the National Assembly that will emerge today will most likely be chosen not exactly by the legislature but by the executive arm. And this is the legislature, the second arm of the three supposed equal arms of the government. Instructively, neither the executive arm as presently headed nor the legislature as represented by most of its members aspiring to lead the institution are even pretending about the aberration. The legislators themselves, both those aspiring to lead the National Assembly and the rest of their colleagues, are happily proclaiming to all to hear and see that the executive has chosen for them those to preside over their affairs. The scenario is an aberration very much in consonance with the character of the APC.
One yelling contradiction about the pitches for leadership of the new National Assembly pertains to religion. The 10th National Assembly, ordinarily, has a very good chance of electing a Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives that will both be Muslims. Should that happen, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary in an otherwise evenly divided multi-religious country will for the first time be totally controlled by one faith.
The pertinent question here is, what is wrong with that? The issue has indeed been settled few months back. It used to be the case that Nigeria saw reason to maintain religious balance while choosing its leaders at the national level. APC came along and had, in making its presidential ticket all-Muslim, prior to the 2023 general election, insisted for self-serving political ground that religion is not and should not be an issue in leadership selection in the country anymore. For good measure, the party and the affected individuals, found a number of Christians, among them prominent general overseers, who either through complicit silence or outright support endorsed the stance that Christians are expendable in building leadership equations in Nigeria’s political governance at the centre. And it came to pass, one way or the other.
As the hustling for the leadership of the 10th National Assembly election raged in the last one month or so, suddenly and with no compunction, APC, the same APC, engaged the reverse gear, contending vociferously that religion should be a critical consideration in selecting who leads the National Assembly. Kashim Shettima, Vice President and one end of the Muslim-Muslim ticket, was quoted as saying during an interactive lobbying meeting with senators-elect over the weekend that It will not be improper for a Muslim to become Senate President at this point in time.
Hear Shettima; “Here we are with a Muslim President and a Muslim Vice President in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious polity like ours. Number One, Two (are) all of the same faith. For God’s sake. Under the current dispensation, the worst, the most incompetent southern Christian is better than the most puritanical northern Muslim for the presidency of the Senate. Equity, justice and fairness demand that the Number Three citizen of the country should be Christian.”
Of course, Shettima did not ask Nasir el-Rufai his views before his passionate, patronizing plea. But even at that, what does anyone make of APC and such argument from Shettima? At what point has religion suddenly assumed a critical place in Nigeria’s leadership consideration again? APC obviously has license to ‘approbate and reprobate’ and they do so without qualms.
In another exhibition of a self-deprecating show that flaunted its overflowing contradictions, a media platform that claimed affinity to APC, over the weekend, released what it called the result of its integrity test for prospective Senate presidents. According to the platform, APC Newsonline, Senator Godswill Akpabio, the man the APC leadership has anointed Senate president, did not pass its integrity test. The online group proceeded to articulate the shortcomings of Senator Akpabio thus: The former governor and former minister was reportedly invited last March by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in relation to allegations of about N400 billion fraud committed in the Niger Delta Development Commission under his watch as minister overseeing the agency. The minister reportedly refused to honour the invitation. His lawyer did respond to the invitation, though, and claimed that the minister was suffering “pneumonia and cardiac arrhythmia.” He ignored subsequent invitations from the same law enforcement agency on the grievous allegation.
Again, the report noted that, in 2021, Akpabio was detained after he was alleged to have tried to bribe the chairman of EFCC Abdulrasheed Bawa with $350,000 (about N135 million).
The bribery attempt was said to be in connection with a cocktail of corruption charges against him, dating back to his governorship days in Akwa Ibom state. The publication alluded to other corruption allegations. These, it said formed its verdict that Akpabio did not meet its integrity quotient.
The APC News Online report did not spare senator Orji Kalu, another aspirant to the senate president, who also failed its integrity test.
The first problem with the APC Newsonline report is with the combination of the phrase Integrity test with APC. That sounds like a heavy oxymoron. APC. Integrity test. How?
In any case, Senator Godswill Akpabio is the man that Bola Tinubu, now president and undisputed leader of the APC, has chosen to be president of the senate. Any so-called integrity test that counters the choice of the party leadership may well be on a mission to nowhere. As for EFCC, the agency simply has to tuck its tales between its legs and face other directions. If they invited Senator Akpabio severally and he did not honour the invitation, too bad. They just have to put further invitation in abeyance. The Senator has a new national call to duty by his party and president.
EFCC need to be wise enough to realize that it may have course, sooner or later, to appear before the Senate under distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio. Then, as the late reggae star Peter Tosh will sing; where you (they) gonna run to…?