By Usman Abdulrahman Jajiri
Democracy is a system that thrives on charm and chicanery. It does not always throw up the best people for leadership positions.
In order to win elections in Nigeria, and elsewhere, you must be willing to suffer fools, to make promises you do not plan to keep, to hobnob with the very people that created the problems you were sworn to solve in the first place. All is fair in love and war, they say, and in politics too, apparently.
To give it a veneer of respectability, they speak of the game of politics, a game without the proverbial level playing field, one in, which the goal posts may change, the umpire is less than impartial, and the rules differ for different candidates. But the goal is always the same: the acquisition of power.
What is not the same is the reason why people want power. In most cases it is for personal aggrandisement, or to shore up fragile egos, or just the sickening need to lord it over others. In most cases, the welfare of the people does not factor into the equation at all, and the vast majority of those who seek to govern us are scratching some itch that had nothing to do with our problems.
Yet, there are some people, fewer than we need, who strive to navigate the murky waters of politics mainly because they want to pull others to shore, to use whatever comparative advantage they have in intelligence, education or willpower, to gain access to the commonwealth so they could share it more equitably. Covered with the elusive blanket of integrity, they hitch their wagon to a belief in themselves, and in the ability of the people they want to represent to see the difference between them and others, between their good intentions and the vile ambition of their opponents.
Often, they lose of course, because as one wise Taiwanese diplomat once said, you cannot catch fish in clean water. And politics is a dirty game. Yet, once in a while some of them do win, either because of their tenacity or because their good intention communicated itself too powerfully to be ignored.
In the race for the leadership of the 10th Assembly, there is already a frenzy of interest and a plethora of permutations going on. There is talk of religious balancing, of zoning and compensations and alignments. No one is having the conversation on competence. In the sheer hysteria that has now taken hold of the process, we are not likely to have that conversation. Yet, it is a conversation worth having, if only because the National Assembly represents the bastion of democracy, the one arm of government that is usually jettisoned after a putsch. The legislature is the closest arm of government to the people, the one which approximates the original system of governance in Athens and thus the one whose wellbeing signifies a virile democratic culture. It is an institution that must be protected from the shenanigans that has ruined many a public institution.
In the run up to the National Assembly leadership elections, some of the less salubrious aspects of our politics have begun to rear their heads. We like to think that only the poor and hapless illiterate is susceptible to inducement, that if only there were more comfortable middle class and educated people, votes would not be traded. Well, not exactly. The difference is only a matter of degree, of means, of content.
With all the horse trading going on, it is easy to lose sight of what the position of presiding officers of the Senate and the House of Representatives represent.
As the country grapples with rising poverty and inflation, primordial divisions exacerbated by the last elections, hunger, diseases, unemployment and crime, and deficit infrastructure, the leadership of the National Assembly must be people with the intellectual capacity and moral probity to be able to guide the legislature. The fact is, the quality of the presiding officers would not only impact on the laws that will be churned out of the National Assembly and the kind of oversight we should expect over ministries, departments and agencies, it would also reflect on the entire administration of the elected president and his ability to fulfill his campaign promises.
The House of Representatives is particularly dicey. With 360 members representing different regions, and more opposition party members than ruling party members, it is going to require a leadership that is experienced in administration and diplomacy, and blessed with legislative chops to booth.
Only one man fits this profile. His credentials, which opponents hate to hear mentioned, are staggering, his morals unimpeachable, his administrative acumen and knowledge of the law-making process, is first rate. For 14 years, Sada Soli, has worked as a civil servant in the National Assembly, clerking for the Senate and House committees of foreign affairs, National Planning, and National Security and Intelligence. For four years he worked with the inimitable Prof. Jibril Aminu at the Nigerian embassy in Washington as his Special Assistance and Minister Counselor in a special dispensation that was granted by President Olusegun Obasanjo. As a diplomat in one of the nation’s most important missions, Soli was privileged to be at the thick of things at a time when Nigeria was shedding off its pariah toga, earned from decades of military rule.
He left the civil service to join politics following the leadership recruitment drive of the late President Umar Musa Yar’ Adua and since then he had represented the Jibia/Kaita federal constituency, winning the election for the third term last February. Indubitably, his tenure as a member of the House of Representatives has been singularly successful and his contributions on the floor of the House where he had sponsored and contributed enormously to motions and bills on sundry national issues, including security in the northwest, the pathetic power sector – where he moved a motion for the declaration of a state of emergency in the sector, education and the economy, moving the motion to review the Naira redesign policy, which was inefficient and ineffective.
He had visited legislative assemblies across the globe, from the Russian Duma, to the US Congress and the National Assembly of sundry African nations, learning how they operate and becoming even more proficient in the workings of national legislatures.
There is no one better at understanding the mechanics of law-making and committee work, or the opportunities available for using the legislature to improve the welfare of citizens and the processes by which laws are passed to concretise these opportunities.
All who know him agree that he is the most competent person amongst the dozen candidates currently vying for the Speakership. Recently, Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila was heard to say that there are three things required for the job: competence, competence, and competence and that Hon Sada has them in spades.
The President-elect, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu has campaigned on the mantle of competence and how it is the overriding factor in the choice of candidates for office in his administration. He had defended this at great risks and expended huge political capital in the process especially after choosing Senator Kashim Shettima as his running mate, sparking a huge uproar over the Muslim-Muslim ticket. But the Jagaban whose political savvy has now reached legendary status went on to win his election, proving that he is both a man who knows what he wants and has the chutzpah to go ahead with his plans whatever the huddles.
As deliberations are on-going within the party chieftains, one hopes that in the same measure, the president-elect and his vice, together with the party, will be making this factor the main point in their deliberations.