House of Representatives Chief Whip, Hassan Ado Doguwa, believes that the opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won’t be able to wrest the leadership of the 9th National Assembly from the majority party, All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Northwest caucus leader in the House gave his reasons, in this interview with DELE ANOFI, the Northwest caucus leader, among other issues. Excerpts:
THE composition of the House leadership is the next most important agenda as the 8th Assembly winds down. The grapevine has it that the minority party, PDP, is strategising to turn the table against APC again, reminiscent of the emergence of the current leadership, are you (APC) not alarmed?
To start with, I was not in any way a key player in the emergence of this current leadership under Yakubu Dogara as it were because I have always been a loyal party member. Throughout the period of the power struggle for the leadership of the 8th Assembly, I stood by the party directives. We voted for Femi Gbajabiamila all through. That was the party’s decision then and we all stood by the party agenda as far as the leadership of the House was concerned. The point I came in was when Dogara won his election, of course, without my vote and support. There was the need for us to stabilise the House leadership and there was a call for Dogara to extend a hand of fellowship to me. Of course, I accepted and the same was extended to the Leader of the House, Gbajabiamila, and we all agreed to take part in the current leadership. None of us, neither Gbajabiamila nor myself, nor Pally Iriase, Deputy Chief Whip, was in anyway a party to the emergence of Dogara as Speaker.
The composition of the leadership of the 9th House of Representatives is certainly going to be the next agenda, not only of the House but that of APC since we have a comfortable majority in the Senate and the House. If we are to go by the arithmetic we have at hand now, I don’t think it is going to be possible for any opposition party, however powerful, however manipulative to think we would be able to repeat the mistake we made in past. They would not get away with that attempt this time around, not only because we have a comfortable majority in both chambers; no, it’s because I think we in the parliament, those of us in APC have learnt our lessons and I also want to believe that our leaders, our major national stakeholders in the party, must have learnt their lessons too. With all sense of responsibility and respect, I want to say that even Mr. President must have learnt his lessons arising from the kind of misgivings encountered in the current leadership of the National Assembly by extension. And I want to say that all these things happened because some right decisions that ought to have been taken ab initio were not taken, either on the part of the Executive arm of government or the party, because they felt then it was not necessary for them to intervene directly in the processes of the emergence of the leadership of the National Assembly. I don’t think the party also did quite well in the process of coordination and galvanising support for the right candidates to take the leadership of the National Assembly. All I’m saying is that whoever may think of having a repeat or replica of what happened in the 7th and 8th Assembly where the party had a position and unfortunately, the opposition party connived and conspired with some of our members in the party and got their way, I don’t think that is going to be possible again. If they succeeded the last time, it was because that was the first time they outsmarted the party and the parliament. This time around, I think we have now come of age and I believe we would not allow the opposition have any opening to take advantage of any crisis or rift within our party to take the leadership again. Taking the leadership of the National Assembly from the majority party by the opposition can only be possible or achievable if the party is not guided by the principle of fairness and justice. Even in the past, it was about fairness and justice. It wasn’t as if there was no issue with the party agenda in the past; there was a lot of problem; some of the agenda presented by the party were lopsided, selfish and not fair but we decided to remain obedient to the party because we didn’t want to create problems, most especially those of us from the Northwest where the President came from. Ee were grateful for the love Nigerians showed us by electing the President from our zone; so, we felt duty bound to agree to all the decisions by the party. But there were actually some problems but I want to believe that the party under the leadership of present Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, wants to get it right this time but we must be ready and prepared to avoid some of those mistakes of the past. Critical among those mistakes were the mistake of selfishness, mistake of bringing in personal agenda, trying to toe the line of an individual, which will always work against the interest of the party and the people. I want to assure that we don’t hope to have the same problem, we won’t encourage a repeat of that problem because Mr. President at the moment would want to have a very friendly National Assembly by way of its leadership so that he will be able to consolidate on the gains of democracy, which he has already set a very foundation for.
You are one of the highest ranking members of the Green Chamber and a serving principal officer, what would you propose for the composition of the leadership of National Assembly since the composition of the Executive has not changed?
My opinion is that as long as the party would build its decision on the basis of fairness and justice in politics or democracy, you are talking of the compensation of the people who have laboured for the party to get this success. And you must also take into cognizance the fact that we operate a federal system of government, where we have different ethnic affinities, tribes, regions and if we must be fair, the performance of each zone must be taken into account and when it comes into compensation, you give them what is due to them on the basis of their performance and contribution to the efforts and success of the election. It does not matter who had the President, the parliament is a separate arm of government. Sharing positions in the Legislature requires that cognizance is taken of the fact that this is another independent arm of government. As such, compensation must be according to performance and contributions. This is in consonance with this Karl Marx saying that “From each according to his ability to each according to his labour”. As long as the party will detail from this concept of reward and punishment, then there will be problems. I want to suggest to the party to look at the performances of each and different geo-political zones and also complete them accordingly when it comes to sharing leadership positions in the National Assembly. For instance, the Northwest delivered the highest number of votes to the party, and so deserved to be compensated for that. We believe in APC principles and ideologies, so we deserve to be adequately compensated despite having the President from that zone. But, if we are talking about fairness and justice, then other zones that do not have critical positions on the part of the Executive must come into the equation. I say this because as it is now, lots of permutations and speculations, which I believe if they continue like that and eventually becoming real, I want to assure you, no one can stop a repeat of what happened in 2015. For instance, a situation where you have the Vice President, number two person from the Southwest and you are now working for the Speakership of the House of Representatives or the Deputy Senate presidency would not bode well for the party in the parliament. I’m not calling names because these are all speculations that are gaining ground but if it turns out to be true, what stops me from the Northwest where the President comes from, to equally decide to vie for the Speaker’s seat? These are the things we have to avoid. If we want to be fair, let’s be fair all through, be transparent, and come up with an agenda that will be acceptable to everyone. The moment a hidden agenda is promoted to the front burner, while talking about fairness and the agenda doesn’t look fair to Nigerians, then there must be problems. These are the problems we had in the 7th and 8th Assemblies, the party must be ready to avoid these mistakes. So, my suggestions are either share positions on the basis of labour and reward due to performance and contributions or fairness and justice based on federal system of democracy so that everyone will feel carried along. Whichever way the party takes, we in the parliament are ready to stand by the party till the end.
As the leader of the Northwest caucus, we have not heard anything from you while some of your colleagues have started declaring their intentions to run for one principal office or the other.
Those of us who have been quiet about our aspirations for the leadership positions in the 9th Assembly are doing that in respect of party supremacy. We are giving the party the benefit of leadership and waiting for the party to declare or come up with a zoning agenda before we now begin to look at it and aspire for whatever positions suitable to us. As loyal party members, we have to be quiet not because we are not ambitious, but take it from me, I will definitely run for one of these principal positions from the Speakership downward.
For emphasis, I am currently the leader of the party from my zone in the House and I’m also holding a principal position as Chief Whip, so I must obviously run for a principal position in the next House but that is dependent on the zoning formula put forward by the party. With all sense of respect and responsibility, I want to say that it is very wrong for any one of us to begin to declare himself as an aspirant for Speakership or any position for that matter much earlier before the party releases its agenda for the leadership positions. To me, that amounts to disrespect for the party. So, whoever is going round campaigning, consulting for positions when the party was yet to make a pronouncement over it, has obviously shown an intention to undermine the party and breach the principle of party supremacy. We are not ready to be disloyal members or undermine our party but we urge the party to be very fair and just when it comes to the issue of the sharing formula for the National Assembly leadership positions. Anything short of fairness and justice, then everybody can be on his own.
Has your party done enough to discipline erring members and maintain party supremacy, if we consider the behaviour of some governors before the election?
In my opinion, the party is doing enough and on course to establish party supremacy discipline erring party members. Unfortunately, this new party structure took off from a frail, weak foundation. The problems we had in the past with the John Oyegun-led National Executive Council (NEC) was that the party does not have that control, party supremacy was nonexistent, it was only in the words of mouth. But we can now see that we have a vibrant party leadership led by a former governor, who is not only fearless and has democratic principles with clarity of purpose. So it’s like the party is now rejuvenated, coming up with more vigour to ensure that discipline is entrenched. For instance, look at the action taken against two governors recently; I think that is exemplary and commendable because it takes a lot of courage and political will to sanction members of that caliber. This is something we never had in the past and we must encourage it. Though they haven’t performed 100 percent yet but I believe they are working towards addressing issues of discipline and promoting the supremacy of the party as far as APC concerned. First of all, in the parliament, we will be excited if we are able to see this principle of party supremacy being respected by all, which I think can only be respected if we can be galvanised and coordinated within the context and content of fairness, justice and equity, otherwise we will not get it right. What would you say to complaints from sections of the populace that lawmakers that kept coming back to the legislature after three terms are not considerate, since membership of the Nigerian legislature is more of empowerment than service?
In the first place I want to disagree vehemently with that assertion, it is not a correct and true assessment of legislators that membership is about personal empowerment than service. As long as the President is coming to the presidency in the name of service nationalistic commitments, every other political public office holder , right from the Local government to the State, to the Federal, I believe is coming with the same commitment, service to the nation. So, alluding to the fact that coming to the legislature is more of self-empowerment than service is to say the least unfortunate, I don’t believe in that and that is not the case. As long as the law allows for someone to come as many times as his people wants to present him, I don’t think that should be an issue.
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