Tag: Douye Diri

In Bayelsa State, gangsterism just trumped due process in the parliament, the supposed bastion of political civility. Some say it was power high drama in the swamps. Others say it was intra-party blocs, jostling for power, gone awry. But whatever it was, it was a huge embarrassment to Nigerian democracy, which should be condemned by all.

Still, whatever happened – at least the build-up before the clattering of guns in the vicinity of parliament – was not unknown to democracy and its endless tensions. Douye Diri just won the candidacy of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the November 16 Bayelsa gubernatorial election. Both Diri and Tonye Isenah, Speaker of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, are from the same local government: Kolokuma-Opoluma.

So, intra-party lobbies want Isenah to quit his speakership, since the governorship could soon go to that local government – if the party wins. But what happens if the party loses – a legitimate question Isenah put to a television interviewer? Still the lobbies insist Isenah must quit, thus giving the party broader voter appeal, as part of the strategy to make the party win. Though that appears unfair, since the cards are stacked against the embattled speaker, it is not unknown in political trade-offs. Besides, the Bayelsa PDP’s official position was that Isenah should resign or be impeached.

Another side to the riveting story is the alleged ploy by Governor Seriake Dickson to secure a future in the Nigerian Senate, as his gubernatorial peers are wont to do, after doing the maximum two four-year terms allowed by the Constitution. The governor’s ambition is said to be a major reason powering the push for Speaker Isenah to quit.

Again, asking a Speaker to quit under one year, after you have secured eight years as governor; and are busy plotting many more years in the Senate, can hardly be said to be fair or equitable.  Still, even that is not unheard of, in Nigeria’s rough-and-tough politics, often skewed towards brazen injustice, rather than equity and fair play.

As for Isenah, he is perfectly within his right to resist – or succumb to – the pressure.  Incidentally, he appeared to be leaning both ways, before the booming guns. Newspapers reported the widely held belief that he was expected to resign earlier. Indeed, he admitted that much, in a television interview with a Channels reporter, saying he told his colleagues that might be the last time he was addressing them as Speaker.

But at the end of the day, he did not quit. He only adjourned the House sine die (indefinitely) and ensured the sergeant-at-arms took away the mace. That spurned the pressure to resign. He said he saw no reason to, since he had committed no crime to warrant such. So, the Speaker foxily outsmarted the lobbies pushing him to quit, thus throwing a procedural log in the process. Still, since his emergence as Speaker was also a product of political trade-offs, he too knew there would be consequences.

What is absolutely unacceptable, however, is the other side resorting to strong arm tactics – from the invading gunmen, sending the people running helter-skelter and throwing the hallowed vicinity into panic and confusion, to the so-called “impeachment” of the Speaker and the “election” of another “Speaker”, Monday Obolo, of Southern Ijaw Constituency 2. In calmer climes where the so-called representatives respect their electors, that would have sparked a serious constitutional crisis.

Though the process that produced Obolo would appear to have featured the majority of the House, it would appear procedurally a no-brainer. For starters, it was without the mace, the ultimate symbol of procedural authority: a mace, belonging to a local government, was said to have been contrived. That Governor Dickson had lauded the purported change of guards, without condemning the gangsterish process, speaks of illicit executive interference in the assembly’s affairs. That is a rape on the doctrine of separation of powers, on which presidential democracy is anchored.

Indeed, what is happening in Bayelsa is a procedural rot: the de jure Speaker (Isenah) is matched against the de facto one (Obolo) – de facto, because the executive, with the colluding bloc of the party in tow, may well decide to muscle Isenah into submission. That would be a classic confrontation between powerless law and reckless impunity. But that would endear our democracy to no one.

Indeed PDP, the former ruling federal party that lost its place basically to the impunity of raping its own internal laws, ought to have advised its Bayelsa members to better behaviour. Besides, it is less than two months to the election. So much galloping violence so close to a crucial election is no good news to anyone.

The local Bayelsa party members must put heads together to peacefully resolve this brewing crisis: impunity-powered rule of law is a cynical oxymoron and travesty that cannot stand, without something crucial giving in.

The security agencies too should take it as early warning signal to dig in and secure the coming governorship election. The people of Bayelsa have the right to a free, fair and peaceful election, in which they can choose their next governor, without smashed skulls, hewn limbs and lost lives.