Key leaders of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) continue to be understandably elated and pleased at the internal turmoil that remains the lot of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) following the unexpected outcome of the National Assembly leadership election of June 9. Despite the party’s numerical majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives, the APC leadership failed to get its preferred candidates for Senate Presidency and Speakership of the House, Senator Ahmad Lawan and Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila, respectively, elected. Rather, those who lost out in the APC internal mock election process for picking candidates for the positions, Senator Bukola Saraki and Honourable Yakubu Dogara, triumphed on the floor of both chambers with the support of the PDP leadership and legislators who naturally and eagerly seized the opportunity to humiliate an APC leadership that had engineered their party’s devastating defeat in the March 22 and April 12 national and state elections.
To worsen matters, not only did the PDP’s Ike Ekweramadu emerge as Deputy Senate President through the connivance of a minority of APC dissident senators, a situation utterly unimaginable under the PDP, the rebel Saraki and Dogara factions continue to resist the party’s position on filling other principal offices of the National Assembly. This is a key reason for the APC federal government’s incapacitation to take off full blast a month after formally assuming power. Ironically, however, the APC’s initial setback in this regard is also an indication of how Nigeria is slowly but surely changing in a positive direction in the emergent President Muhammadu Buhari dispensation.
Under the Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan administrations, the PDP was completely subsumed under the presidency. Both men exercised maximum control as the undisputed leaders of the party. The party was only another parastatal of government at the beck and call of the presidency. The President’s word and will was law in the party. Party leaders were elected and removed at the president’s pleasure. Intra party democracy was an illusion. Yes, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, with the support of the then opposition Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) emerged as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011 against the choice of his party.
Although the PDP hierarchy was irritated by this development, it tolerated the situation because Tambuwal and other principal officers of the House remained PDP members. However, when Tambuwal as Speaker decided to bite the bullet and formally joined the APC, the PDP bared its fangs. The party immediately sought an ultimately abortive judicial decision to oust the Speaker from the office. Tambuwal’s security details were withdrawn. In an incident with no historical precedence, the police tear gassed the National Assembly in another futile effort to prevent him from presiding as Speaker on the chamber’s resumption from recess. It was clearly the imminence at the time of the last election that saved Tambuwal.
A fresh wind of change is blowing under Buhari. The president is not flaunting his position as leader of the APC by virtue of being number one citizen of the country. By declaring at his inauguration that he is for everybody and not for anybody, he signalled his determination to elevate his presidency above party partisanship. Buhari is President of those who voted for him, those who voted against him and those who chose not to vote at all. This stance enhances the dignity and credibility of his presidency. Does this mean he must not have a firm position on issues and a specific and clear sense of direction? That is certainly not the case. He has a decisive mandate from a majority of the Nigerian electorate to fulfil an agenda presented to the people on the platform of his party. It is his responsibility to pursue this agenda decisively without fear or favour.
Does Buhari’s elevating his presidency above partisanship mean that he should be indifferent to and disinterested in matters of his party including those who hold key positions such as the principal officers of a National Assembly in which his party enjoys a clear numerical majority? Again this cannot be the case. It is neither practicable nor desirable. The APC leadership, in my view, could not have formally backed candidates for these offices without reading the president’s body language and enjoying his tacit support. Unlike the vulgar style of the Obasanjo and Jonathan PDP presidencies, Buhari obviously deliberately chose to be subtle and unobtrusive in his approach to the National Assembly leadership elections to protect the twin doctrines of separation of powers and party supremacy.
The blunt truth is that given the immense powers and resources at the disposal of the Nigerian presidency, Buhari could easily have imposed his preferred candidates on the party and would also readily have had his way in the National Assembly. With the security agencies, the anti- corruption outfits and the country’s treasury all at his disposal, even a sizable number of PDP legislators could have been coerced, cajoled or bribed to do the President’s bidding. It is significant that Buhari has chosen a different path. He has opted to be a ‘President of precedents’ in terms of integrity and respect for systems, structures and processes. It is obvious that the likes of Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, in deciding to so brazenly violate their party’s position, have mistaken Buhari’s restrained, dignified and cultured presidential style as a sign of weakness. Beneath his unassuming exterior, however, those who think this way may ultimately discover that Buhari remains a shrewd military tactician who you can take for granted only at your peril.
In defending his action, the Speaker, Honourable Yakubu Dogara, has reportedly made the interesting argument that the sovereignty of the people supersedes party supremacy. Yes, in a democracy, sovereignty belongs to the people. Government derives its mandate from their expressed will at the polls. But then, the people do not govern themselves directly as in the ancient Greek City states. They do so through elected representatives in both the legislative and executive arms of government. Again, however, these elected representatives are not elected on their personal recognition as individuals. The constitution as at today has no place for independent candidates. Rather, public office holders can only be elected on the platform of registered political parties, which are the only constitutionally recognised organs for the expression of popular sovereignty. It is thus those who violate the tenets of party supremacy that impugn the sovereignty of the people.
The late Chief Obafemi Awolowo made this point with characteristic pungency on Saturday, 8th November, 1980, with reference to the 1979 constitution, which hardly differs from our current 1999 constitution. Whatever may have occurred in the past, we can only begin to strengthen our democracy as we urgently begin to adhere to the sage’s admonition. Permit me to conclude by quoting him at some length: “Members of the Legislature and the Chief Executive of any Government are, in the first place, candidates of the Registered Political Parties and, in the second place, in the case of those elected into the legislature, enjoined by the constitution, under pain of severe sanction, to remain loyal to the registered party which sponsored their election… Indeed, the Registered Political Party is the sole source from which candidates for election and elected members of the Legislature and Executive derive their life-blood for acceptability, public status, and legitimacy. Any elected party member or group of elected members of a Political Party who refuse to toe the party line – that is choose to break their link with the party source – must, of necessity, either quickly affiliate with another Political Party for a link with another party source, or be doomed to political dehydration or anaemia. In other words, by express provisions as well as necessary implications in the Constitution, the Registered Political Party is supreme and absolutely decisive in the conduct of our public affairs”.
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