The clamour for change in the headship of the Senate, the ghost of which many thought was buried with the October 9 resolution of the upper chamber, has been exhumed by Senator Godswill Akpabio. Eric Ikhilae, in this report, examines Akpabio’s October 17 call for a reconstitution of the Senate’s leadership to reflect the numerical strength of parties, the legal justification, if any, and the imperative of a recourse to democratic convention.
Many had thought the clamour for a change in the leadership of the Senate, ignited by Senate President Bukola Saraki’s defection from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had been laid to rest.
On October 9, Senators had resolved to shelve the plot to remove Saraki in order not to heat up the polity. The legislators equally resolved that national interest should take the front seat in all their dealings.
However, the ghost of the clamour for a change in the Senate’s leadership, to reflect the current party membership composition has refused to rest permanently. It was exhumed on October 17.
After a rancorous session, former Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio (representing Akwa Ibom North West) addressed a press conference where he re-echoed the call for leadership change.
Akpabio, who also defected from the PDP to the APC, contended that the majority must always preside over the minority.
He called for an urgent reconstitution and restructuring of the Senate to reflect the current numerical strength of parties.
The Senator, who resigned his position as the Minority Leader upon his defection from the PDP, challenged Saraki to follow suit, stressing that it was the most honourable path.
Akpabio, who insisted that the Senate must be properly constituted and senators must sit according to political parties, noted that democratic tradition requires that while the minority should have its say, the majority should have its way for peace to prevail.
He added: “You cannot have 10 senators presiding over the affairs of 80 senators and expect peace to reign. On the other side, having me move from the PDP to the APC, I think it is a jolly good movement and I am excited that I have a much greater opportunity to relate directly with the government and not my voice to be heard from a partisan point of view.
“Being part of the ruling party now, whatever advice or contributions I will make will not be looked at with suspicion. They will now know that I am saying it from a patriotic point of view and for the fact that I want things to work better.
“I moved in national interest. I saw a kind of slight towards disorder, where many of my colleagues saw defection as a weapon against the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“I don’t believe that we should bring a government into being without supporting that government to succeed. If the administration slides and Nigeria slides into anarchy, it is our children that will suffer. I moved to stabilise the polity.
“I moved from PDP to APC, to make sure that this government works before election. It should not be all about election; it should be first about Nigeria. Let others also move in national interest.
“I did not just move like that. I was a (Minority) Leader in the Senate. I resigned my position in order to show that, yes, I meant business. Let others who also have positions in the Senate, who wish to also cross carpet from one political party to another, also resign their positions and take a cue from what Godswill Akpabio did.
“There is the need for us to restructure the Senate. Behind where I sat today, my very good friend, distinguished Senator Shittu; it was after the little noise in the Senate that he told me that he was now in the PDP and I said ‘why are you sitting here?’
“Don’t you think there is the need for us to restructure the Senate? PDP will sit on a side, APGA will sit where they are supposed to, and the ruling party, which still forms the majority, will still sit where they are supposed to sit.
“The leadership should be restructured in a way that the majority can have their way and the minority will have their say. That is the practice all over modern democracies.
“You cannot have a political party with 10 members, another with 80 members, and the 10 members will now produce the leadership.
“Does it happen anywhere in the world? Nigeria is not different. We are running a democracy. That is what I meant when I said I would speak when the Senate is well restructured and reconstituted.”
APC’s position
Earlier on August 18 this year, at a meeting of APC leaders in Abuja, the party’s National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole made a similar argument.
He said: “Democracy teaches us that minority has the right to have their say but majority must have their way.
“So, if we have 56 senators and they have 49 senators, I insist that 49 senators cannot preside over the affairs of a house in which APC has 56 Senators. And I ask them to tell us anywhere in the world where minority rules over majority.
“Often times, we take flights to Washington and other places to understudy the American presidential system of government. Once you lose majority, without further ado, you step down.
“So, I want to repeat, Senator Saraki, as President of the Senate will be lawfully and democratically impeached. It will not be illegally done. It will be done according to law and tradition.
“The only way that, probably, he could have retained that seat is to decide to return but we will not be ready to welcome him. He must remain where he is and we will continue to ensure that he surrenders the presidency of the Senate to the majority party in the Senate – in line with the provisions of our constitution,” Oshiomhole said.
Ndume: Why Saraki must leave
On September 23, another APC Senator, Mohammed Ndume (Borno South) repeated the call for Saraki to yield the leadership of the Senate to the party with the majority.
Ndume argued that since Saraki decided to leave the APC for PDP, he should have left the position as he could not be in a minority party and be President of the Senate.
The Senator recalled that as minority leader in the House of Representatives, when he defected to the PDP from the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), he resigned from the position without being asked to do so.
He argued it was natural that he left the position, because he could not move from the minority to the majority and still be a minority leader. Ndume added that Saraki could therefore, not move from majority to minority and still be the President of the Senate.
Ndume noted that there should only be one Senate President, who ought to come from the majority political party. He added that it was an aberration and abnormal for someone in the minority to lead the majority.
He added: “I am still thinking and hoping that Saraki will do the right thing and the right thing is for him to relinquish that position for the majority to preside.”
Observers’ perspective
However, observers have noted that the position being canvassed by Akpabio and other leaders of the APC lacks legal backing.
They contend that, while it is the convention in every democracy that the majority leads the minority, such tradition, in the case of Nigeria, is not supported by any known law.
Legal analysts argue that should the majority party in the current Senate desire a change in its leadership, only two options are open to it.
The first, they said, is the recourse to the constitutional provisions for the removal of leaders of a legislative house.
The second, they opined, is the recourse to unconstitutional means of effecting the desired change by any means possible.
They, however, pointed out that it was more decent for Saraki to toe the part of honour and abide by global democratic convention by resigning and allowing the majority party to assume the leadership of the upper chamber.
Observers argue that such development could not have been captured in the Constitution because it was inconceivable that, in a democracy, the minority party will produce the leadership of a legislative house.
They added that since it was never contemplated and provided for in the Constitution or any extant law, it was imperative that democratic convention, which dictates that, although the minority may have its say, the majority must always have its way, should prevail in the interest of peace and the growth of the nation’s democracy.
Law experts’ submissions
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Sebastine Hon, argued that the position by Akpabio and other leaders of the ruling APC is only supported by convention, not by law.
Hon was of the view that the Constitution did not provide, either directly or indirectly, that the President of the Senate must be from the majority party.
He said: “At best, it is conventional. And apart from that, the leadership situation in the Senate today is a repeat of history.
“You will recall that former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, who is now Governor of Sokoto State, defected from the PDP, on whose platform, he was elected, to the then opposition APC, and the APC was not in the majority.
“Yet, nobody demanded that he vacate the leadership seat in the House of Representatives.
“There is no truth in the claim that the majority party must produce the leaders of any legislative chamber in Nigeria.
“There is no constitutional truth, there is no legal truth; there is no moral truth to that claim.”
Shittu: Saraki should step aside on moral grounds
A Law teacher at the University of Lagos, Wahab Shittu, insists that on ethical and moral grounds, Saraki should be prevailed upon to allow the majority party to produce the Senate President, as has been the tradition.
Shittu noted that the issue raises constitutional, ethical and moral standards.
He stressed that constitutionally, Saraki has a right to defect, which he has exercised, but that such defection also has its consequences.
While noting that the post of the Senate President is reserved for the party with the majority in the House, Shittu argued the ruling party, by the exercise of its majority membership in the House, is entitled to produce the Senate President.
“Having defected from the ruling party, and with the ruling party still maintaining a majority in the House, he (Saraki) can no longer preside over the House.
“And, if you look at it from the perspective of the tenets of democracy, democracy is a game of number. So, the majority has the right to produce the Senate President. That is the privilege they enjoy.
“But, having said that, the decision, on who becomes the Senate President, is the prerogative of the House. Every Senator is entitled to exercise his/her voting right when the choice of a Senate President is being made.
“It is something that will be subjected to vote, because it is the prerogative of members to decide who they want to make the Senate President.
“This is why I say it raises ethical and moral question. Because there is a saying that if there is a crown that belongs to a family and you leave the family for any reason; ethically and morally, you should also return the crown,” Shittu said.
Also, a legal expert Dr. Abdulsalam Sadiq is of the view that in the absence of any constitutional provision that effectively addresses the issue at hand, the most democratic option is to resort to tradition and practices as in other civilised democracies.
Sadiq said: “It is unfortunate that politicians in this clime are actuated by motives other than service to the people and fatherland.
“They are driven solely by the urge for self-aggrandisement and mad acquisition of crude power and capital for their sake.
“The Constitution flourishes on moral hygiene, and legal rules are basic minimum acceptable standards of conduct in any democratic setting.
“So, in a democracy, the law expects the society to function at much higher standards than those contained in legal rules.”