Saraki, Dogara: What The APC Must Know

The All Progressive Congress (APC) the party who Nigerians voted overwhelmingly in the March 28, Presidential election and the April 11, 2015 Governorship elections is in trouble with itself over the distribution of dispensable offices in the National Assembly both senate and House of Representatives.
The party is livid over the defeat of its preferred candidates for the principal offices at both chambers of the National Assembly.
Against the party’s wish, Senator Bukola Saraki (Kwara) on Tuesday clinched the position of Senate President in a non contest election returning unopposed. The APC preferred candidates for the senate presidency Ahmed Lawan and Deputy Senate presidency George Akume were not even present for the vote because both men were at a party’s meeting summoned at the International Conference Centre Abuja by the APC leadership.
Hon Yakubu Dogara (Bauchi) was not that lucky as he won his victory in a hard way flooring the party’s preferred candidate Femi Gbajabiamila polling 182 votes against his opponent’s 174 votes.
The focus of this piece is not to replay the scenes as they unfolded on Tuesday at both chambers of the National Assembly but to attempt to extrapolate on how the new ruling party got itself into what may have described as self inflicted injury which has portrayed the party as disunited.
Disunity in this regard might be an understatement given the vengeful remarks coming from the national leadership of the APC through its National Publicity Secretary Alhaji Lai Mohammed. The party apart from rejecting the election of the principal officers in both chambers of the National Assembly, it has gone ahead to threaten sanctions against ‘erring’ senators and members of the House of Representatives. According to Lai Mohammed, both Saraki and Dogara are not the party’s choices for the senate Presidency and speaker, House of Representatives and as such the party would not recognize them.
The party made do its threat Thursday when it refused audience with Sen. Saraki who wished to visit the National Working committee (NWC) of the party.
It must be stated that the National Assembly members have only done what is constitutional for them to do, and the APC should know and it should be clear to it that it has got nothing to do to upstage what has happened in the National Assembly. This is so because the National Assembly is mot APC assembly and it has chosen its leadership as demanded by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.
They must also read the body language of President Buhari who has acknowledged the constitutional process that has taken place in the National Assembly.
The party leadership should stay quietly and lick its wounds and restrategise to regain its foothold in the management of the party’s affairs which had been left to suffer unduly as a result of failure of leadership.
Political watches have warned that the APC tread with caution in its volt     quest to sanction the ‘recalcitrant’ members or give them the Tambuwal treatment the PDP way as renegades.
Instead the APC should accept the new leadership of the National Assembly and work with them. By so doing, the party would be re-launching itself to relevance after it had lost it to the whapped ambition of a select powerful few who have hijacked the party and its instruments to further their selfish political agenda. Many have blamed the party’s failure to have its way with its members at the National Assembly on attempts by this group in the APC to impose their will in a most undemocratic manner on the party forcing many faithful to disagree vowing to frustrate the ‘party’s’ choices for the offices of Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker House of Representatives and his deputy.
What exposed the party’s hypocrisy came last week Saturday when it conducted what it called straw poll that produced Senators Ahmed Lawan for the position of Senate President, George Akume ,Deputy Senate President, Femi Gbajabiamila, Speaker House of Representaties and Mohammed Monquno for the post of Deputy Speaker.
The party had directed its cenators-elect and House of Representatives members-elect at that time to comply. But Sen. Saraki and Hon. Dogara and their supporters had declared their opposition to the party’s arrangement preferring to test their popularity on the floor of their respective chambers.
Interestingly, prior to this period, the APC through the grand master himself Ahmed Tinubu was all over the place canvassing against zoning of principal offices in the National Assembly preferring merit and competence instead.
Tinubu who won accolades for spear heading opposition politics in Nigeria that wrestled power from the PDP which Nigerian electorate loved to hate for poor governance, it is believed got his party to dictate who got what in the straw poll preferring Ahmed Lawan, George Akume for senate president and deputy as well as Femi Gbajabiamila and Mohammed Monguno for Speaker, Deputy Speaker House of Representatives respectively.
Many have asked how the APC which had maintained a non zoning posture when many Nigerians were calling for it for purposes of equity and fairness to the respective geo-political zones suddenly decided to name its candidates against its initial stance.
Many also question the rationale behind APC’s official decision to over concentrate power in the South West and the North East zones leaving both the South South and South-East zones empty handed without any key offices zoned to them. The APC must realize that they rode on the change mantra to woo Nigerians to vote for it to lead the country out of the woods and must be seen to be carrying every part of the country along in the scheme of things. The party must be above board when issues touching on the collective well being of the nation are on the table.
One would have to explain why every APC faithful should key into an agenda deliberately skewed to serve peculiarly interest but put out or clothed in the garb of party supremacy.
What is supreme here? Is it the wish of a powerful few who do not believe in equality of the geo political zones in its scheme of things or the popular wish of the silent but powerful majority?
One had expected the APC to be happy that its members in the National Assembly voted for merit and competence which had been the sing song of the grand master himself in the build up to the proclamation of the 8th National Assembly by President Mohammadu Buhari.
The election of the principal officers of the National Assembly had not only served the purpose of merit as defined by the senators and members of the House of Representatives, it has also in a way helped in ensuring equity and fairness in the allocation of the six foremost political positions in the country which the APC had attempted subvert to serve their premordial interest. What the National Assembly members have just done has helped to renew citizen’s faith in the emerging political dispensation.
The present political arrangement which produced President (North West) Vice President (South West) Senate President (North Central) Speaker (North East) Deputy Senate President (South East) Deputy Speaker (South West) is fair to the extent that only the South South has been left out in the nation’s political equation.
Like I said in my previous piece that power is not allocated on a platter but fought for, the APC members from the South South particularly those of them in the Senate and House of Representatives should now lick their wounds for not joining the moving train in the struggle for positions in the house.
They should now know that the future belongs to the brave and not the sheepish.  How on earth should any one accept to go for the crumbs when he has the opportunity  to share from the main dish.  I hope some lessions have been learnt.
For the APC, it must present itself as a party in government for every Nigerian and not for a few or any part thereof. Therefore, it must strive to put its acts together and offer the purposeful governance which reason Nigerians voted massively for it in the last elections. The APC must realize and quickly too that Nigerians did not vote for them to see them bicker over appointments and what have you, but to mobilize the resources of the country both human and material for the overall good of the country.
The party must also know that Nigerians are in a hurry to see the change mantra given a meaning. It must also realize that the change it preaches should not only exist in words, it must also manifest in deeds.
This is where well meaning Nigerians are calling on the APC leadership to practice the change they preach and stop the attempt to take the nation back to the threshold of politics of imposition, the nation has grown past that era and the earlier the APC realizes this the better and embrace the new National Assembly leadership because President Buhari’s ability to press for the desired reforms will be determined in part by the party in power relations with members and leadership of the National Assembly.  One is glad that the National Chairman of APC Odigie Oyegun said Friday that the party recognises the new leadership at the National Assembly.
This is where we find the statement credited to former speaker, House of Representatives in the 5th Assembly Ghali Umar Na’aba describing the 8th Assembly deciding to be its own self as another democratic revolution against a conventional wisdom of imposition of its leadership by political parties.
Na’aba spoke during a solidarity visit by former presiding officers of the House to the new speaker and urged the APC to view Saraki and Dogara’s emergence as victory for the legislature.