Ripples‘ candid view: Aminu Tambuwal, Speaker of the House of Representatives, should have resigned his speakership.
From the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) camp, now busy shopping for sympathy, and howling “betrayal”, that view would be “balanced and objective”; or even “patriotic”.
From the All Progressives Congress (APC), celebrating a big political catch, Ripples would be guilty of “empty idealism” and perhaps culpable ignorance of the realpolitik.
But both views would amount to cant. Principles are constant. But cant is the chameleon that changes with the season, even if it has to risk high unreason, bordering on patent absurdity.
By convention, the party with the majority provides the Speaker — democracy is, after all, majority rule. So, Alhaji Tambuwal ought to have stepped down because it is decent, because it is honourable, because it is fair.
But which of the opposing sides plays by decency, plays by honour, plays by fairness? And if overwhelming bad faith is the grundnorm, why would a partisan play by good faith — to commit partisan suicide?
To the emotive and non-introspective, therefore, the Tambuwal affair is a PDP vs. APC tango. In a way, it is — to the extent that the one got a net-loss and the other, a net-gain. But dig deeper, and what you see is the unconscionable face of Nigerian politics, and its rotten, smelly core! That ought to impress the perceptive, much more than partisan gains or losses.
Take the PDP that now screams blue murder. What moral right has it to do so: because it boasts better morality when similar situations are to its own rogue advantage?
Mulikat Adeolu-Akande, the House Leader, was quoted as saying that the with Ondo Governor, Olusegun Mimiko’s defection to PDP, all eight Labour Party (LP) members of the House of Representatives “automatically” (and Ripples adds, seamlessly) become PDP members — just like that? And there was even no split in LP!
Now, if the House Leader is so sloppy in her sense of proprietary, why should others be more scrupulous — because the majority is now the victim? Or because PDP can ripple its majority muscles to threaten others, or corral illicit orders from the Police high command to impose its will?
That, of course, brings the debate to the purported withdrawal of security from the office of Speaker — not because he has been deposed as Speaker, but because he has defected from the majority party.
To start with, there is an eerie similarity between Sulaiman Abba, acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and his commander-in-chief, President Goodluck Jonathan, in the so-called withdrawal of the Speaker’s security details.
The one wants to be confirmed IGP at all cost; the other wants to win in 2015 at all cost. So, it is meet that the subversive order — subversive of the law — emanated from the Concert of the Desperate, into which the duo fits pat! Whenever desperation is sighted, bad judgement is never far away.
Besides, it is tribute to Jonathan’s presidential focus that even as Boko Haram swooped over Mubi in Adamawa, the commander-in-chief was swooping over a presidential nomination form for a job he has clearly proved his inability; and was also gracelessly settling partisan scores with the Speaker.
On what basis was the IGP giving that illegal order? That Alhaji Tambuwal is no longer Speaker? That definitely is not true, for no parliamentary session has deposed him. And if he is still Speaker, does the IGP, even if the president gives him an illegal order, have the right to summarily strip the No. 4 citizen of his security, his right by law?
If that were so, then it would be dangerous indeed: for maybe some day, someone, somewhere could “order” the IGP to summarily withdraw the president’s security details too! And by pure logic, why not? If a mere policeman can deny the No. 4 citizen his legally guaranteed security, on some phantom law he lacks the capacity to correctly interpret, he could also as well deny the No. 1, citizen, the president, of his too!
Outrageous? That is the risk you take when, by reflex but unreflective actions, you try to undermine the institutions of state.
But back to the basic argument: ought Speaker Tambuwal have remained Speaker, after defecting from his majority party? On moral grounds, Ripples thinks not. But the legality or otherwise of it is much more complex, all the more complicated by the mala fide all round.
To start with, by Section 50(1)(b) of the 1999 Constitution, the Speaker is the exclusive business of the House. So, is the IGP (or even the president) a member of the House? So, how come both have convinced (more of colluded with) themselves the Speaker has been removed, and so should forfeit his right to official security by law, if both don’t suffer from grand executive delusion?
Then even the law the IGP glibly quoted: Section 68(1)(g), which says a House member loses his seat if he left his party for another, provided there was no division in the party or merger with another party.
Now, where was our IGP when Labour Party MPs defected to PDP, even with no division in their party? The same law he brandished with a flourish at the Speaker died then, just because the president was pleased with the defection to his own party? So, it is some Animal Farm, where some animals are more equal than others?
Of course, partisan opinion is divided on whether a division exists in the PDP. The ruling party hierarchs love to flaunt a court verdict that there was nothing like “New PDP”. They follow that up to kid themselves there was no division in the party. But if there was no division, how come five governors (Sokoto, Rivers, Kano, Kwara and Adamawa — now reclaimed by gunboat impeachment) left the party for APC?
The opposition APC has even upped the ante, pushing forth two Federal High Court judgments: Justice Faji, in Ilorin, that held there were indeed factions in the PDP; and Justice Aikawa, in Sokoto, which not only affirmed that there was a division but also held that the resulting faction merged with APC.
So, if these judgments are real, where stands the PDP position that factions never existed simply because of the legal sophistry that no “New PDP existed”? And where stands the IGP precipitate order to strip the Speaker of his security, simply because Mr. President is boiling?
Let President Jonathan and fellow PDP hierarchs boil all they want. They are only a victim of their own impunity. The rich also cry!
But let them be wary of, as Jonathan always does when he appears trapped, rushing to wield power, without recourse to the law that created that power. That would reinforce the ultimate futility of impunity and doom them to crises like the Tambuwal affair, if not the eventual collapse of the democratic project.
As for APC, let them too be wary of playing the politics of cant, and play more of the politics of principle. It is such penchant to play in the PDP sewers that fuels the rising opinion that APC differs from PDP as six differs from half-a-dozen.
APC, if it really wants to deliver change, cannot afford such conceptual putdown.
Quote: “Let President Jonathan and fellow PDP hierarchs boil all they want. They are only a victim of their own impunity.”
