THE battle for supremacy and the ethical high ground between the Senate on the one hand and some appointees of the Muhammadu Buhari presidency on the other hand has been fierce, messy and troubling. But despite its troubling signposts, the battle is not what it seems on the surface. It portends something far more sinister and dangerous to the body politic. The senate, much more than the House of Representatives, is less bashful about fighting wars, any war, choosing the battleground no matter how irreverent, daring the public offensively, and playing brinkmanship with provocative adroitness. Nigerians, egged on by vocal commentators and civil society activists, seem to recognise and even conclude that the senate is less than altruistic in the ongoing combat. For now, the government side of the battle is exemplified and amplified by the ineffaceably cocksure Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, Ibrahim Magu, the sometimes coarse Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) comptroller-general, Hameed Ali, and the gruff and immense Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal.
On the surface, the war is about a pliant senate headed by Bukola Saraki, a senate alleged to be ethically challenged and imposing itself and its controversial moral code on both the presidency and the nation. Dr Saraki himself faces many investigations and court battles, and is assumed to be deploying the senate’s influence to pressure the presidency into soft-pedalling on the cases or sidestepping the investigations, or even stalemating the entire struggle. The particulars of the trouble Dr Saraki faces are doubtless troubling. There is the Code of Conduct Tribunal case in which he is accused of inaccurate declaration of assets; there is also the importation of a bullet proof jeep for his use that is mired in controversial payment of inaccurate duty leading to the seizure of the vehicle; and there is the newer and more damning case of N19bn allegedly siphoned from states’ share of the Paris Club refund and the N3.5bn reportedly traced to the senate president and some of his aides. There is, it seems, no respite for Dr Saraki, as his antagonists appear determined to thrust the knife deeper into his back. He faces an uphill battle convincing the country of his right ethical standing and bona fides.
Ranged on the other side of the battle are the senate president’s three formidable enemies hamstrung by their own peculiar bureaucratic or ethical challenges. Mr Magu is condemned by the Department of State Service (DSS) as unfit for the post he is seeking confirmation. In an equally damning report which the Service has been reluctant to recant, Mr Magu stands convicted of cavorting in an ethical miasma of his own finding and making. It is obvious the senate wants him removed from his acting EFCC chairmanship because he is not letting up in traducing and harassing the senate’s leadership. Mr Ali drew the senate’s ire by defying the order to appear before them in customs uniform. This was a totally needless controversy that had little or nothing to do with the law or constitution. But it has become a tortuous struggle for dominance. On his own, Mr Lawal is embroiled in a more straightforward case of alleged abuse of office in which a company connected with him reportedly applied for and won a controversial contract meant to palliate the sufferings of internally displaced persons in Boko Haram’s blighted Northeast.
The three men, together with the disputatious camps they belong to in the fractious Buhari presidency, are bonded by their sworn determination to make the senate either amenable to their wishes and the executive’s or at least unhorse Dr Saraki, their chief tormentor. Both the customs and the EFCC have thus begun a cat and mouse game with the senate. Dr Saraki’s aides, the EFCC threateningly announced, would be hauled in for interrogation over the N19bn illegally deducted from the states’ N522bn Paris Club loan refund, particularly the N3.5bn allegedly traced to the senate president and his aides. In addition to Mr Ali defying the senate over the uniform brouhaha, the Customs have also intensified their propaganda war against the upper legislative chamber by substantiating their allegations of customs duties evasion by the senate. Mr Lawal has been fairly reticent in recent times, but he had twice bad-temperedly defied the senate, sometimes using inflammatory words and declining their invitations to defend his actions.
In the midst of the long-running battle between the executive and the senate, a battle that has led to paralysis over the confirmation of 27 Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs), the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has wisely constituted a committee to mediate a truce or, more appropriately, seek ways to placate the obviously angry senate. The mediation group is headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Government spokesman, Information and Culture minister, Lai Mohammed, acknowledged that democracy was bound to manifest the kind of struggles the country was witnessing between the executive and the legislature. It is part of the learning curve to find a balance between the powers and responsibilities of all the arms of government, he says. But after waiting until positions ossified so dangerously, it is not clear how the mediation group hopes to engender peace, especially after some government functionaries have joined the fray and spoken exasperatingly of the senate’s leadership style and role in the misunderstanding.
Hopefully, a peace deal can be brokered. Last year, going by the executive’s desire to win every argument against the senate and the judiciary, and given the injurious manner the sentimental discourse was framed, many observers began to fear that the struggle had become a zero-sum game where one of the parties simply had to lose for the other to win. In fact, at a point, the country came dangerously close to being worked up to overthrow what Nigerians concluded was a decadent and retrogressive National Assembly. There was no attempt to separate the National Assembly’s controversial and unpopular principal officers from the legislature as an institution.
Worse, and more depressingly, there was no attempt to anticipate how the chain reaction would end once the instigated public marched on the National Assembly. Not only was the executive wholly incapable of framing their arguments and position in the inspiring and lofty terms of the finest principles of democracy, the public also carelessly glossed over the unhidden fact that the presidency was no longer in the hands of the man elected to preside over the affairs of the country. The new jingoistic and usurpatory cabal, part ethnically bigoted and part religiously extremist, was more obsessed with the destructive materialism of power than its utilitarian relevance for democracy, good governance, and unity and stability. Years of experience with instability since 1966, when disaffection with one government did not necessarily lead to a better replacement, had apparently not taught the public the virtue of patience and moderation.
The Federal Executive Council is right to seek an understanding and settlement with the senate. This is not an indication of weakness, desperation or subservience. It is a manifestation of strength and wisdom, the kinds that have eluded a large section of the public. In a matter of years, the current principal officers of the National Assembly will vacate their seats, and possibly the legislature entirely. But that institution will remain. It is in the interest of democracy and the freedoms the constitution has so elegantly vouchsafed and guaranteed that the legislature must be guarded and helped to retain its relevance and influence, despite the obvious failings of many of its leaders. Members of the cabinet and heads of government agencies and civil society activists who have spoken unguardedly and emotively about the legislature, and are campaigning for its abrogation or occupation, are confused.
The senate’s principal officers, particularly Dr Saraki, has acted sensibly but purely accidentally in defending the legislature’s powers and influence. Why in the same vein he is unable to grasp the fundamental fact that he fouls the dignity of that hallowed chamber by his unconscionable and unethical private and public moral codes, not to say unending court battles, is hard to explain. Can he make amends? It is doubtful. For as the Nigerian society and democracy are currently structured along obsessively materialistic lines, it is difficult for exemplar politicians, the kind Nigerians crave, to win public office. The country must therefore look beyond Dr Saraki and his coterie of tragicomedian supporters. The legislature must be defended in order for it to serve as a bulwark against the increasing predilection of the Buhari presidency for dictatorship. After the legislature has been secured, then Nigerians must take up the onerous task of filling its hallowed seats with qualified and ethical lawmakers. Enough of the sentimental, reactive and uninformed approach.
The rapprochement begun by FEC must be encouraged, and the near unschooled defiance of Messrs Magu, Ali and Lawal must not be allowed to take root if Nigerian democracy is not to become malformed and endangered. Indeed, all this trouble could have been averted if the presidency had been both cohesive and visionary, not to say informed, enough to anticipate the dangers and consequences of its increasingly dysfunctional leadership style. However, all is not lost. If the public can summon the patience and reflection required to help rebuild Nigerian democracy, the current abhorrent struggle for supremacy between the senate and a few members of the executive arm could yet become a part of the learning curve that is an integral part of the African experiment with democracy.
