In advanced democracies governed by rational-legal authorities, leadership of national assembly is often a routine affair within a ruling party with a majority in parliament. Model builders from John Calvin (1509-1564) to Baron de Montesquieu (1748) and others that came up with the idea of separation of powers in their wisdomrealized that was the only way to guarantee stability of government and prevent it from being held hostage by a hostile opposition without prejudice to the supervisory functions of the parliament. It is therefore unimaginable in the US whose constitution we copied, that the GOP will embark on a surreptitious move to take over the congress with a democrat majority. Such was equally inconceivable during the first and second republics and in the first 16 years of the fourth republic. Of course there were conflicts within the national assembly with Obasanjo changing senate presidents at will, but it was all intra-party affairs.
But all that changed with the takeover of our National Assembly in 2015 by ruffians, in the guise of protecting the independence of the legislature. And predictably, what the model builders and framers of our constitution sought to avoid was what happened with the ruling government with a majority held hostage by PDP and APC ruffians who stalled government projects through budget passage delays, budget padding and cornering a big chunk of the annual budget for themselves. At the end, the 8th assembly which will probably enter the Guinness Book of Records as the highest paid parliament in the world served no one but their members.
Because we allowed evil to thrive in 2015,the desperate struggle for the leadership of the 9th assembly has againstarted in earnest with top aspirants for the position of presiding officers within the ruling party reported to have converted some suites in the Transcorp Hilton Hotels to a mini secretariat. Newly elected and returning federal legislators have also been sighted sneaking in and out of the emergency secretariat’. Going by our experiences in recent years with outcome of presidential primaries determined by the contestant’s weight in dollars and voters openly hawking their votes, it is most unlikely those going in and out of the emergency secretariat will leave empty handed. The stakes have become higher with PDP’s reported “launching of an audacious move to win to its side 13 All Progressives Congress (APC) senators-elect as part of a grand design to hijack the leadership of the 9th Senate”.
“The fact that it has been a convention for the majority party to produce presiding officers does not make it legal or the norm” –PDP, a beneficiary of the same convention for an unbroken 16 years, now insists. The party now says “it is not mandatory for the principal officers of the senate and the House to come from the party with a simple majority in the two chambers”.Just like the ‘like-mind’ senators claimed in 2015, they say they are worried about a possible emergence of “a possible rubber stamp legislature” if the ruling party is allowed to foist leaders on the two chambers. They did not only fail to identify any democracy where their model works, they were silent on the fact that theirunique model in 2015 ended up creating a parallel government with the National Assembly preparing their own budgets,paying themselves outrageous salaries and allowances and frittering away billions of naira on over 500 abandoned constituency projects that were doomed to fail since feasibility studies were never carried out.
But why would a party that was given free hand to run the country for 16 years and made a mess of it be reluctant to perform the role of an opposition which is to keep the ruling party on its toes? It is precisely because PDP is not a party.Itis according to John Campbell, a former US Ambassador to Nigeria, “a club of elites who come together for sharing of oil rents and political spoils”. As military-baked ‘new breed’ politicians,they merely set out to complete Babangida’s uncompleted mission – the destruction of the economy through ill-conceived Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) that turned our nation to net importer of other nations’ labour, with its own ill-implemented privatization programme that shared out Nigeria’s budding industries after injection of public funds, to its members. PDP and its leaders set out to serve none but themselves and their members.
Let us start with Obasanjo, the father of PDP. In an attempt to consolidate his hold on power after winning in 1999 election without a political base, he did everything to undermine the country’s democratization process by presiding over massively rigged elections in 2003, 2007, impositionof ailing Yar’Adua following his third term fiasco, and in 2011, Goodluck Jonathan.His continuation with Babangida’s adopted Bretton Woods’ international monetary arrangement that set up a system of fixed exchange rates with the US dollar as the international reserve currency,which Lamido Sanusi, (Emir of Kano) in a widely circulated socialmedia video said he regretted embracing as CBN governor, only brought ruin to our nation and impoverishment of our people. The only beneficiaries are private jet-owningPDPimporters of wine,champagne, rice,textile, fake drugs and tooth pick among others.
Like Obasanjo, Atiku Abubakar’s struggle is for Atiku.His decision to collude with South-south’s self-serving governors led by James Ibori, in an attempt to deny Obasanjo, his boss a second term in2003 could not have possibly been on behalf of poor Nigerian victims of the duo’s war over the privatisation and sharing of our common resources. And Atiku’s 12 years of motion without movement between PDP, ACN, PDP, APC and back to PDP,in search of platform many believe,had little to do with serving the people but more to do with fulfilling his ambition.
We similarly have evidence to supportBukola Saraki’s claim that he was driven by noble objectives to inelegantly seize the leadership of the senate in 2015. Andrefusing to relinquish the senate presidency after decamping back toa party, with minority, in the words of Oshiomhole,APC chairman, only”portrayed Saraki for who he was – a person, whose personal interest always comes first before any other interest, including national interest.”And as if to confirm PDP is not averse to unscrupulous means to political ends, Senator Olujimi, Fayose’s former deputy reminded Nigerians that it was the PDP that gave Saraki 42 of the 53 votes with which he emerged senate president in 2015.
The story is the same with PDP elected assembly members who in 2002, publicly made it clear they were in a hurry to recoup their expenses having sold houses to fund the 1999 elections.They went on to pass the PPPRA bill which was to become the instrument with which they and their siblings defrauded the country to the tune of about N1.7trillion.
Democracy is never sustained by immoral behaviours of politicians like Ayo Fayose who ruled his state with six lawmakers after chasing 22 lawmakers out of town with thugs or a Saraki who took over the red chambers with 42 opposition senators after outwitting 52 of his party senators. There is noknown democracy where a party with 37 elected lawmakers would be scheming to take over a parliament with a majority of 63 senators.
And no constitution, including the American constitution that we copied which according to John Adams, the second American president (1797-1801), was ‘made only for a moral and religious people”, can survive greed, recklessness, licentiousnessas we today witness among PDP and APC politicians. Those promoting immoralityand lack of character as ‘real-politik’ must realize that nothing threatens democracy and freedom as immorality.