The disagreement between the governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai and the senators representing Kaduna north and Kaduna central senatorial districts, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi and Senator Shehu Sani, has degenerated into conducts bordering on recklessness and arbitrariness. Interestingly, all the three major combatants belong to the All Progressive Congress (APC), and as such are supposed to be agents of the change agenda, the mantra on which the party rode into power, following the 2015 general elections.
While the jury is still out, whether the political gladiators are delivering the dividends of democracy as executive and legislative actors, there is ample evidence that they have failed woefully as change agents of political culture. When former President Olusegun Obasanjo claimed that the 2007 general elections was a ‘do or die affair’, it appears as if he was foretelling the 2019 general elections especially in Kaduna State with the way the governor and the senators are exhibiting political intolerance.
No doubt, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) did a lot of damage to our political culture while it held sway at the centre, but the run-up to the 2019 general election is degenerating into physical violence in many states, and the earlier the combatants are called to order, the better for our democracy. Perhaps it is fortuitous that President Muhammadu Buhari has set up a reconciliation committee headed by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to put out the fires; so the committee deserves all the support. For this column, both Hunkuyi’s fractionalisation of the party and el-Rufai’s executive highhandedness are forms of violence to party politics and constitutional conducts, and so deserves condemnation.
I consider it a form of indiscipline to seek to divide a party once there is disagreement amongst party members. It is also reckless to raise a fake faction of the party to purportedly suspend the governor of the state or any member of the party, just because there are no effective party sanctions, against such infractions. Of course, it is not the state but a political party that can legitimately punish such infraction, by expelling a recalcitrant member, considering the fundamental right to peaceful assembly and association, guaranteed by section 40 of the 1999 constitution (as amended).
But even graver is the reaction of the government of Kaduna State to what it considered an act of political recklessness. A deduction from the available facts show that for daring to raise a faction of the APC in Kaduna State, for unlawfully converting a residential premises to a commercial purpose, and for failing to pay ground rent or other tenement rates due to the state, the Kaduna State government arbitrarily revoked a right of occupancy and went ahead to destroy the subject matter of the dispute.
This column considers as utterly bizarre and reckless the action of the government of Kaduna State for the alleged infraction of state laws by the owners of the property known as 11B Sambo Close in the Ungwan Rimi area of the Kaduna metropolis. Assuming the owners of the property are guilty of the alleged infractions, can the state agencies allege the infractions complained of, summarily find the company guilty without a hearing, and immediately pull down the property without an opportunity for an appeal against the decision?
The only appropriate name for such an action is executive lawlessness. Unless the governor of the state, Mallam el-Rufai do not give a damn about the tenets of democracy, rule of law and constitutionalism, the government which he heads by virtue of the 1999 constitution (as amended) should be utterly ashamed for resorting to self-help, in the dispute with what may be an unlawful faction of the ruling party in the state.
As I said, it is irresponsible for party members to resort to fractionalisation once they lose influence within the party, but it is grave violence to constitutionalism for a government to resort to physical violence as an answer to such irritation. If el-Rufai lays any claim to democratic culture and hopes to advance his political career, he must accept responsibility for the grave injustice done to our claim of being a constitutional democracy and take immediate steps to ameliorate his executive’s lawlessness.
The officials of Kaduna State Property Development Agency or Kaduna Geographic Information Service or the alleged military officials on illegal duty at the demolition site, who participated in the aberration which took place last week in Kaduna State, should hide their heads in shame. While they may have saved their buttered bread, they should know that have delivered a spike to the heart of our democracy. Their action is incomparable to the alleged infringements of Hunkuyi and company, with respect to party indiscipline and alleged violation of the land use.
The governor of Kaduna State and the other state actors failed to be guided by the eternal principle of democracy, which is the rule of law. As one of the fathers of constitutional democracy John Locke (1632-1704) wrote: “Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to everyone of that society and made by the legislative power created in it, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown arbitrary will of another man.” What happened in Kaduna last week smells like an arbitrary will of one man and it should be deprecated.
The option left for the hurting senator, whose property was destroyed is to approach the court for redress; to consider whether the state government obeyed the dictum of Aniagolu JSC in Olaniyan vs University of Lagos (1985) NWLR pt 9, page 599 at 654, thus: “The procedure adopted … may be quick, convenient and time saving, but the dictates of justice demands that the legal principle of audi alteram partem must be obeyed, no matter how cumbersome and inconvenient it may appear …”
It is very strange that governors elected under a constitutional democracy find it very convenient to summarily determine the guilt of persons accused of one infraction of state law or another without trial. Some governors because of the severity of the offences alleged, take the laws into their hands by pulling down the houses of those involved, and in some instances, the public hail such aberration. While that may be temporary convenient, as Aniagolu JSC held in Olaniyan’s case, the possibility that it can be used to settle political scores should be an eye opener.
If President Muhammadu Buhari and his vice, Professor Yemi Osinbajo have shown maturity in dealing with their political opponents, our governors should even be more tolerant. Perhaps they could learn from Lord Denning’s word of caution in Gouriet vs Union of Post Office (1977) 1 QB 729 at page 761-762, to wit: “To every subject in this land, no matter how powerful. I would use Thomas Fuller’s words over 300 years ago: ‘Be you never so high, the law is above you.”