For drama, there are very few institutions that can match Nigeria’s National Assembly. On a given day, anything could happen: from legislators hurling chairs at each other or exchanging blows, to masked thugs invading the chamber to spirit the mace away.
Sometimes the entertainment is provided by external forces. For instance, in the dying days of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, the lawmakers arrived for work one day to discover that all entrances had been blocked by the police.
It was part of the fallout from the power play between Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government and Speaker Aminu Tambuwal who had been flirting openly with the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC). At that point, the votes of the opposition were the only thing sustaining him in office.
Enraged that they couldn’t gain entrance into their offices, and fearful that the executive was about to pull off something unsavoury against their man, the more excitable and adventurous among the legislators took to scaling the high gates and fences – not minding the impediment of their billowing agbadas. In the end the police backed off and normalcy was restored.
More recently in August last year, it was the secret police in the form of hooded State Security Service (SSS) agents that arrived to seal off the assembly. Assisted by truckloads of the regular cops, their assignment was ostensibly to supervise the overthrow of Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy Ike Ekweremadu.
But such was the backlash that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo removed the then SSS Director-General, Lawal Daura, from his position.
From the early days of the Fourth Republic, the assembly has been a hotbed of intrigue as a succession of Senate Presidents and Speakers were toppled in messy coups at the behest of the Executive.
Among victims were the likes of Evans Enwerem, Chuba Okadigbo, Anyim Pius Anyim, Adolphus Wabara, Salisu Buhari, Patience Etteh and Dimeji Bankole.
While the legislature is a separate arm of government, its ability to choose its leadership without interference from external forces, has been limited. Although the arms are supposed to work in concert, the parliament’s power over the national purse as well as constitutional role in the possible impeachment of a president or governor makes it a threat to insecure politicians in the executive branch.
This fact has often defined the relationship between the two sides. Many in the executive believe that they can only sleep with two eyes closed if they install a stooge to lead the legislature. On the part of the lawmakers many chafe under this constraint as they struggle to balance the desire for cordial ties with their constitutional duty to provide checks and balances.
Under President Olusegun Obasanjo, the National Assembly was a very unstable place for those who led the institution. His successors – Umaru Yar’Adua and Jonathan – were less overbearing and allowed the lawmakers greater room for self-expression. But that didn’t stop the pattern of the executive overtly trying to install Senate Presidents and Speakers.
That was until President Muhammadu Buhari famously washed his hands off the matter in 2015, declaring that he could work with anyone. His position was unprecedented in recent times and completely caught the APC leadership which was still trying to guide the succession process off-guard.
In the vacuum that was created Saraki launched his power grab in the Senate with a bloc vote from the PDP, while half of the APC lawmakers were on a wild goose chase elsewhere in Abuja. In the House of Representatives, his confederate, Yakubu Dogara, pulled a similar stunt – again allying with elements of the opposition to defeat Femi Gbajabiamila who was backed by the party.
While Saraki’s actions angered many within the ruling party’s leadership, his move was by no means original. Indeed, he had merely torn a page out of the APC’s very own play book as the party had openly cooperated with Tambuwal when he defied the PDP to run against the party approved candidate for Speaker, Mulikat Adeola. So, this was a case of unorthodox politics coming back to bite you.
Since that episode, however, many have come to think that this is the proper way of doing things. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
In pursuing their bids for self-actualisation, Saraki, Tambuwal and Dogara, trampled the concept of party supremacy underfoot. They probably felt they could later beg for forgiveness after deliberately sinning. It helped that at that point they were dealing with a naïve president and a weak party chairman.
With attention now reverting to the National Assembly succession, many have been watching to see how the APC would handle things and how the PDP would play its own cards.
Anxious not to allow a repeat of the debacle of four years ago, Buhari and the ruling party’s leaders have quickly seized the initiative by anointing Senate Majority Leader, Ahmed Lawan, to lead the upper chamber. They are believed also to have lined up the House Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, for the Speaker slot.
Further firing up controversy, APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, bluntly declared that the ruling party would not share power with the opposition. All committee chairs would be from the ruling party except for one slot constitutionally set aside for the opposition.
While some have questioned whether this forceful intervention is wise given that it takes away much of the approved aspirant’s room for compromise, it does appear to have had an effect.
It has only drawn muted protest from one aspirant – Senator Ali Ndume, but we’ve not witnessed the sort of mutinous response we saw in 2015. Buhari has also moved to mollify another interested party, Danjuma Goje.
For its part, the PDP insists it would put up candidates to lead the National Assembly and would do everything in its power to derail the APC’s plans.
Despite the criticism he has received, I can’t find much that is wrong with Oshiomhole’s position which simply echoes a basic principle that in a democracy the majority rules.
Nigeria’s National Assembly, just like the presidency, is closely patterned after the United States’ model with minor modifications. In the US, the day to day business of the Senate is run by the Majority Leader and not a Senate President.
However, succession from election to election is without fuss, as the most senior person simply moves into the next slot. For instance, when the Democrat’s Harry Reid was Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell of the Republican Party was Minority Leader. When the Republicans became the majority he became the leader of the Senate.
The same thing happened in the House of Representatives where Nancy Pelosi who used to be Minority Leader seamlessly stepped into the Speaker’s chair when the Democrats became the majority last November.
In the same manner, it is the party with the largest number that heads the legislative committees. What occurred under Saraki in the Senate and Tambuwal and Dogara in the House with the two parties sharing chairmanships as equals was an aberration.
They had to share power with the opposition because the manner in which they emerged demanded that there be a quid pro quo. Such arrangements are forced on you where you can’t muster a majority and have to cobble a working coalition together. It is uncalled for where you are in clear majority in the two chambers as is the case with the APC today.
It is immoral politics for a party in minority to seek to rule over the majority. That would be like attempting to overturn the expressed will of the people.
Rather than seek to govern a chamber where it is the second largest in number, the PDP should strive to excel in its opposition role and offer Nigerians a clear governance alternative.
But such is the character of our politics today that despite its clear majorities in the House and Senate, there is still considerable trepidation within and without the APC as to whether it can make its members line up behind those backed by officialdom.
There is this false notion that once people step into the chambers of the assembly, they should no longer be held to their partisan obligations. Nothing could be more wrongheaded. The Senate or House are not some special political clubs where legislators lose their partisan identifies.
They are simply fora where people advance the vision of their parties for governing the country. Sometimes, there could be bipartisanship on issues. At other times voting could follow strict pary lines. It happens all over the world and we would not reinvent the wheel in Nigeria.
I suspect that the case would be different in 2019 for a couple of reasons. The ruling party now has a strong leadership that has shown that it is able to confront those who were hitherto untouchables. Its handling of Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun and his Imo counterpart Rochas Okorocha attests to that.
Secondly, there is no Saraki in this contest. In 2015, he was driven by ambition and the politics of the legacy groups within APC. Since the presidency was out of the question, the Senate Presidency was the next best thing his new-PDP could fight for. He had the profile, following and resources to go against the party line and emerge unscathed.
The dynamics are different this time. Those expecting a repeat of what happened four years ago should ask themselves whether Goje or Ndume want the Senate Presidency so badly that they are willing to confront Buhari and the APC high command. How far would they be willing to go in pursuit of their ambition?
But perhaps the most important factor in the struggle for power in the National Assembly is the fact that PDP has emerged from the elections stronger than before. It has taken four states from the APC and now has governors in all zones. The APC has lost its lone foothold in the Southeast – Imo State.
But what it lost at gubernatorial level, it has made up for by adding control of the National Assembly to its grip on the presidency. For it to maintain the initiative going into the next election cycle, it only makes sense for it to unapologetically maximise its advantages. I suspect that the PDP would do the same if positions were swapped.