It is worrisome what dire portents the controversial National Assembly (NASS) leadership elections of June 9 have let loose. The elections were supposed to be a routine, if slightly competitive, exercise to choose those who would preside over the affairs of the 8th Senate and 8th House of Representatives. But it turned out to be a harbinger of unsettling and inextricable complications for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Given what the disputed elections signposted, the APC must ready itself for more intrigues and fierce competition for dominance by party leaders. In defiance of his party, APC’s Bukola Saraki had struck an alliance with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to emerge as Senate President, with PDP’s Ike Ekweremadu as his deputy. In the lower chamber, Yakubu Dogara, also defying his party, had emerged as Speaker, with Lasun Suleiman of the APC as deputy.
While the APC was still fuming over the developments in the National Assembly, some of the party’s key leaders offered their views on the election and managed in the same breath to show where they were headed politically. The viewpoints of three APC leaders — former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, former Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and former Kano governor Rabiu Kwankwaso — indicate just how poignantly the NASS election transcended merely producing the leaders of the 8th NASS. Senator Saraki, Alhaji Atiku, Governor Tambuwal and Senator Kwankwaso are thought to eye the 2019 presidential race. Their actions and opinions on the June 9 NASS leadership elections were believed to have been influenced by their ambitions. But whether each has pursued that ambition ethically and healthily, and with the insuperable circumspection of a future presidential aspirant, will be clear in the coming months.
The election, or more accurately, the affirmation, of Senator Ekweremadu appears to be the leitmotif of the forthcoming presidential struggle. The reaction of the four APC leaders to the presence on the APC ticket of PDP’s Senator Ekweremadu is serving as the litmus test to gauge their loyalty to the party, their character as individuals and politicians, and their understanding of the dynamics of Nigerian politics. Senator Saraki’s ambition is hardly disguised. While he is entitled to nurse any ambition, many party leaders and followers are uneasy over the guileful but facile manner he ceded the important and valuable position of Deputy Senate Presidency to the PDP, and act attributed wholly to his machinations. Even after the brouhaha over the political heresy is quietened, it is doubtful whether Senator Saraki can be trusted again. Party leaders, members and the populace will wonder whether there is a limit to what and who Senator Saraki can trade for his ambition. He will be judged blameless for resisting his party and pursuing his ambition to lead the senate; but he will not be exculpated for undermining his party in such a grand, reckless and offensive manner. He is unlikely to live down that betrayal, or celebrate for long what is evidently a pyrrhic victory.
Alhaji Atiku denies that his celebration of the outcome of the NASS elections has anything to do with the 2019 presidential race, but he has offered no forceful or convincing justification for turning a blind eye to Senator Saraki’s subversion of party discipline. Indeed, Alhaji Atiku was enthusiastic in welcoming the new NASS leadership. “The Nigerian people are looking up to the new National Assembly to work with the executive arm to find solutions to the problems of insecurity, poverty, illiteracy and joblessness in the country,” gushed the former vice president. “Their election is indeed a call to duty, and it is a call for which they cannot afford to fail the nation.” He goes on to suggest that the new NASS leaders should not be discomfited by the circumstances of their emergence, but should swing to work immediately and not let personal political interest supersede national interest. He offered no direct or indirect opinion on the subversion of party discipline plotted by Senator Saraki, nor of the embarrassment and dire implication to the APC which the affirmation of Senator Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President disgracefully connoted.
While Alhaji Atiku has achieved some renown in crisscrossing political parties, Governor Tambuwal, another party leader who might be interested in the 2019 presidential race, had a reputation for general stoicism and ideological politics. During his tenure as Speaker of the House of Representatives, he came across to many as a dependable politician and leader, one who mixed well, and was sagacious, intelligent and courageous. Why he seemed blithely unaware of the damage to his reputation which his inappropriate reaction to the NASS leadership election implied is hard to understand. He was an ardent defender of the independence of the legislature, and he stood ramrod against the political and executive malfeasances of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. But surely, given his perspicacity, he should be capable of drawing a line between legislative independence and legislative ethicalness, and between party discipline and executive interference. Yet, he was not too incommoded by the desire to defy his party when he felt it was justified. Whether that justification had anything to do with principles or personal interest cannot now be easily established. But in embracing the June 9 NASS elections, which he claimed exampled the maturation of Nigerian democracy, he showed none of the gifts, accomplishments and oratorical endearments for which he had been celebrated as a hero of the 7th Senate.
Senator Kwankwaso has never hidden his interest in running for president. In fact, he is unabashed in showing his interest. He has a solid political pedigree, and his time as governor of Kano State, not to talk of his Kwankwasiya ideology, continues to resonate quite well with many Nigerians. In the last APC presidential primary, he surprised many by coming a famous and inspiring second to the winner, Muhammadu Buhari. Since then he has talked sensibly, fearlessly, independently and clairvoyantly. What is more, he seems somewhat uncannily prescient in judging political matters. Weeks before the June 9 NASS elections, he had warned of an impending catastrophe if APC leaders failed to handle the NASS leadership elections well. After the elections, when some party leaders waffled, he forthrightly lambasted Senator Saraki for rank indiscipline, and described other beneficiaries of the aberrant elections, such as Senator Ekweremadu, as undeserving. He also counseled the party to establish its authority over its members if the Buhari presidency was not to be threatened by the new and unholy alliance between Senator Saraki and his new PDP affiliates.
It may be too early to project into the 2019 presidential race, for four years is a very long time in politics. But so far, Senator Kwankwaso has talked the talk most engagingly. His sound bites are clear and crisp, and his stand quite geomorphologically close to the Rock of Gibralta. It however remains to be seen how well he can stay faithful to, and be focused on, doing and saying the right things effortlessly. At the bottom of the posturing by these ambitious APC leaders is the expectation that President Buhari could choose not to run in 2019. If he does however run, the hopes and plans of these early aspirants will be summarily dashed. If he does not run, the field will be crowded by many presidential wannabes, some of them accomplished flip-floppers, and others too short-termist to endure a long race. Among them, if he can stay the course, and nurse his principles, will be Senator Kwankwaso, ebullient, iconoclastic and pragmatic as ever.
