A head of its official release just as last week was ending, the most closely-guarded and most anticipated list in Nigeria’s political history sprang a huge leak.
Senate President Bukola Saraki is keeping what has been released so far to his obdurate chest, bravely keeping up the pretence that he is a worthy occupant of that post and a worthy recipient of the document, even after being docked like a common miscreant. I will return to this point shortly.
Perhaps by the time you read this piece, Buhari will have released the complement.
Never was a list so highly anticipated. And it was not just by those jockeying for cabinet positions. Having a close relation or friend or even the merest acquaintance in the cabinet is the closest thing to being a cabinet minister. It could translate into easy money, financial help, juicy contracts, jobs for dependents who have been pounding the streets forlornly since graduating five years ago, and perhaps even into a huge leap from obscurity to celebrity.
Interest and speculation were therefore very high among those with eyes trained on the main chance. And in the ranks of such persons whose candidates found favour, there is already great rejoicing, as reflected in the upsurge in special thanksgiving sessions during Sunday worship. The celebrations, aso ebi and all, will come later, with the scale varying directly as the perceived juiciness of the assigned ministry.
There has also been a corresponding upsurge in supplication with regard to the content of the supplementary list. Fervent prayers, with fasting and solemn pledges, are being said that those who did not figure in the first list will figure prominently in the coming one, and that the outcome will confirm the wisdom of the ancients that those who laugh last laugh best.
Some of those desperately hoping for cabinet positions fuelled interest and speculation in the process by insinuating themselves in the media as prospects receiving serious and active consideration, hoping thereby that if Buhari does not know their merit, the media would tell him just what he is missing.
This tactic hasn’t always worked, but can you blame anyone for trying?
Basking in Saraki’s faded glory instead of establishing his own bona fides, the mercurial Senator Dino Melaye has declared that the confirmation hearings will be thorough; that the era of “bow and go,” whereby a candidate for confirmation is asked to take a bow and move on, without any enquiry into his or her qualifications and fitness for the office, is over.
It is to be hoped that this is not another example of the empty talk for which Melaye has become notorious. It would be nice if, for once, the Senate did its home work and put the candidates through the searching examination that will show how qualified they are to be ministers in these uncertain times that demand substantive mastery, and a huge capacity for learning, adaptation and innovation.
President Buhari should help the Senate in his regard by attaching a portfolio to each nominee. The idea that any person adjudged fit for ministerial office can function as political head of any ministry, a carry-over from the Shagari era, is preposterous. A person who can muddle through as Minister of Parks and Gardens is unlikely to do a credible job as Minister of Science and Technology or as Minister for the Navy.
Vice versa, persons eminently suitable for those posts will most likely make a hash of the Parks and Gardens portfolio.
In times past, some senators would now be preparing for a rich harvest. Prospective cabinet members knew that it was one thing — the easy part, in fact— to be nominated, and quite another to be confirmed. It was not unusual for hints to be planted by persons claiming to work within the system that the path might be lubricated with a substantial infusion of cash or goods routed through them, or for candidates to offer same upfront, without waiting to be asked.
Either way, the “system” was the winner.
Not this time; not under the new Sheriff.
What role will Saraki play in all this?
He is stuck in the hole he dug himself into, and continues to dig furiously. Docked like a common criminal, he presumed to lecture the presiding judge on the law and the Constitution. Instead of the triumphal homecoming that crowds had been rented to accord him in Ilorin, he was pelted with water sachets and stones and called the most repellent names at the praying grounds during Sallah and had to be spirited away for his own safety.
The event was captured on video and splendidly reported by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the nation’s most professional and most reliable media source. But Saraki’s spokespersons claim that it never took place. So much for their credibility.
To counter his Sallah misadventure and create the illusion that he was in good standing, Saraki suborned major traditional rulers in Kwara State, among them a retired judge of the Court of Appeal, who, as I was reminded by a younger friend the other day, might have become the nation’s chief justice, to pay him the courtesy visit that was usually accorded the serving governor, and to confer on him a vote of confidence even as he faced ongoing criminal investigations.
When the Senate resumed after yet another well-compensated recess, he launched into a self-serving oration about how he had become Senate President in accordance with the constitutional provision that the Senate would elect one of its own to the post, and how he was being persecuted on account of that fact, and for his vow to safeguard the “independence” of the Legislative Branch.
But not before stage-managing another vote of confidence.
Why does a person who is completely innocent need so many votes of confidence?
Yes, the Senate is enjoined to elect one of its own as president. It also prescribes the manner in which the choice is to be made. There is also the weighty matter of the spirit of the law. Saraki subverted the spirit of the law to become president. Withal, he is a defendant in a charge of forgery – forgery of the rules of procedure that governed his election.
The “independence” of the legislature that Saraki says he is out to protect is a threadbare pretext. The legislature is just one of the three arms of government. Its bills become law only when the President assents to them. It can delay or revise, but only rarely can it countermand the President. And whereas the courts can invalidate any act of the legislature incompatible with the Constitution, the legislature cannot overturn the verdict of the courts.
So, where is the “independence” Saraki says he is out to protect? “Independence” from whom, and for what?
What will it take to make him realise that he cannot continue to preside over the Senate without destroying that institution? How many more of these sophomoric stunts can he stage in his desperation to hold on to office?
I am hoping that when the hearings get under way, at least one nominee will look Saraki in the face and say, “Senator, with all due respect to your office, you lack the honour and the moral integrity to sit in judgment as to whether I should serve on the President Buhari’s cabinet or not. I cannot in good conscience submit to your authority in this matter. I thank the President for the nomination, but must for the reason I have stated respectfully withdraw from consideration.”
