Peace at last in the House

LEKE BAIYEWU writes that after 49 days of infighting, peace seems to have found its way into the House of Representatives, unlike in the Senate

Finally, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has allowed the ruling All Progressives Congress to have its way in the lower chamber of the National Assembly. Since the 8th Assembly was inaugurated in a controversial circumstance on June 9, 2015, it had known no peace. Since then, members of the Assembly had not been able to settle down for legislative duties.

In all, members of the majority party, the APC, in the House battled for 49 days; due to the differences among some members of the APC caucuses in the Senate and the House concerning their party’s choice for the leadership of the National Assembly. The National Assembly proceeded on two long recesses which observers strongly believe, was to douse the rising tension between the warring sides. They finally resumed on July 28.

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When the federal legislature was inaugurated in controversial circumstance on June 9, Senator Bukola Saraki, a former two-term Governor of Kwara State and erstwhile Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, emerged the President of the Senate ‘unopposed’. In the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara contested against the Minority Leader of the 7th House, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila – the candidate of his party – and won with a difference of eight votes. Both Saraki and Dogara joined forces with the opposition and minorities in both chambers, especially members of the Peoples Democratic Party, to occupy the third and fourth most important offices in the country.

Since then, the APC caucus in the House split into two – those that backed Dogara who felt the party should not dictate to the legislature how it would run its affairs and those loyal to the party who felt it (the party) had supremacy over its members.

There were several botched meetings including failed deals and agreements on the sharing formula for the remaining principal offices.

While the Dogara faction insisted that the positions should be shared according to geopolitical zones, with the zonal caucuses nominating their candidates — as Saraki’s group did in the Senate; the Gbajabiamila-led faction, however, insisted on the choice of the party.

For instance, the National Executive Committee of the APC waded in through the Progressive Governors’ Forum, with a special assignment for the Governor of Sokoto State, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal who as the Speaker of the House in the last administration, was also elected against the wish of his former party, the PDP – the then ruling party — in 2011 before his defection to the APC in 2014.

He led a reconciliatory committee that looked into the crisis but which eventually shared the sentiment of the Dogara group, as reports had it.

The Tambuwal committee, had organised a one-on-one negotiation meeting for Dogara and Gbajabiamila on July 5, where the Speaker was said to have offered Gbajabiamila the chairmanship of the Ad Hoc Committee on Constitution Review— an influential and heavily-funded committee that deals with issues relating to amendment of the 1999 Constitution and responsible for the report of the 2014 National Conference. The yearly budget of the committee is said to be around N1bn.

Under the relevant rules of the House, the committee is usually chaired by the Deputy Speaker, with members drawn from the six geo-political zones. But Dogara was willing to trade the position with Gbajabiamila in exchange for the position of Majority Leader, with the lower chamber amending its rules to accommodate the transfer of the responsibility from Yusuf Lasun, who is the Deputy Speaker to Gbajabiamila.

But Gbajabiamila reportedly rejected the offer, insisting on becoming the Majority Leader in compliance with the decision of the APC.

The supremacy battle however took a new twist when the 8th Assembly Consolidation Group led by Dogara lured some of Gbajabiamila’s supporters with posts and they fell for it.

For instance, Mr. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, an ally of the ex-Minority Leader and member of the APC Loyalists Group, had said he considered the offer made to him to become the Majority Leader of the House as a possible solution to the raging leadership tussle in the legislature.

“I consider this offer good if it is genuine; the Speaker has given the assurances that he is ready for peace to prevail in the House. This offer, to my mind, is a good gesture and we can work with it – given the assurances by the Speaker,” he stated.

While he clarified that members of the group had not met to discuss the offer, he called on them to reason along with him, saying, “I am just expressing my own view on this matter; that we have to accept this offer so that we can move ahead. I believe that the general opinion of Nigerians is that this crisis has dragged on for too long and we should end it and allow the government to move on.”

A few days after, some ex-loyalists of Gbajabiamila and members of the APC Loyalists Group declared their support for Dogara. The lawmakers claimed that they had realised that it was better to place the interest of the country ahead of all other considerations to accept the positions of the principal officers of the House as proposed by Dogara.

Members of the Gbajabiamila group who attended a joint press conference with the Dogara group in Abuja on July 25 included Ado-Doguwa (Kano State); Mr. Mohammed Monguno (Borno State); and Mr. Pally Iriase (Edo State).

They had named the merger group ‘Equity Forum’.

Speaking on behalf of the loyalists group, Iriase said that their change of mind was informed by the realisation that the members had to comply with Section 14 of the 1999 Constitution, which dealt with federal character.

Iriase added, “Let Nigerians know that the crisis in the House has been resolved. Based on the letter the Speaker wrote to the APC, under Section 13 of the constitution, he is to ensure compliance with Section 14 (3) of the constitution.

“We have, therefore, accepted the Speaker’s proposal on the equitable distribution of the principal positions. The majority of the APC members in the loyalists group have accepted these positions for the sake of promoting equity.”

Meanwhile, Gbajabiamila, who was the leader of the APC Loyalists Group, was not at the session, while the spokesman for the group, Mr. Nasiru Zango-Daura, issued a statement, saying the group would not support the sharing arrangement adopted by Ado-Doguwa, Monguno and Iriase.

The development had confirmed a speculation that Dogara had broken the ranks of the APC Loyalists Group, using the offer made to Ado-Doguwa as the major bait.

However, in what can best be described as a shocker to members of the House, the APC and observers of the unrepentant nature of the Dogara-led rebel lawmakers, the Speaker, during the Tuesday plenary, announced Gbajabiamila as the Majority Leader of the 8th House.

Describing the announcement as “the big one,” Dogara also announced Mr. Buba Jibrin (North-Central) as the Deputy Leader, and Mr. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa (North-West) as the Chief Whip. The position of the Deputy Whip was given to Mr. Pally Iriase (South-South). The South-East geopolitical zone, which has the lowest membership of the APC caucus in the House, got no principal office. Meanwhile, the Deputy Speaker, Mr. Yusuf Lasun, who is from the South-West as the Gbajabiamila, retained his position in the new arrangement.

Similarly, the PDP also unveiled its principal officers. The party named the Deputy Leader of the 7th House, Mr. Leo Ogor (South-South), as the Minority Leader; Ugochukwu Onyeama (South-East), Deputy Minority Leader; Mr. Yakubu Barde (North-West), Minority Whip; and while Binta Bello-Maigeri (North-East), Deputy Minority Whip.

Some political analysts have given the credit of the return of relative peace to the House to President Muhammad Buhari, owing to his last-minute intervention in the crisis. Buhari had stated that he would not interfere in the affairs of the legislature. Even when the unexpected happened at the National Assembly and the ‘wrong’ people took over its leadership, the President had said he was ready to work with the leaders of the legislature, although he would have preferred the choice of the ruling party.

Several political pundits had faulted President Buhari for staying aloof the National Assembly crisis. This development, they said, might become a threat to the success of the executive if the President distanced himself from the events in the legislature.

Thus, on July 27 – the eve of the Assembly’s resumption — President Buhari met with all APC members in the House. The 20-minute meeting was described as the magic wand that brought peace to the House. Most of those who spoke after the meeting expressed much delight.

President Buhari had earlier met with Gbajabiamila privately at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on July 24 for the second time; the first of such meeting was with the ex-Minority Leader and about 29 of his loyal colleagues.

After the Tuesday meeting, Gbajabiamila told journalists that it dwelt extensively on party supremacy. He said, “We are still talking. But I think this is the first time everybody is coming together in a cordial atmosphere. We came together for the first time as one family, with a lot of camaraderie. I think we are almost at the point where all of these would be behind us, hopefully by tomorrow (Tuesday).

“It is not about magic; it is about what should have been done a long time ago. We have finally sat down together and we will resolve it before the night, in a couple of hours.

“The important thing is that the country wants to move ahead. The House wants to move ahead and the party wants to move ahead. Move ahead, we shall. Whoever or whatever outside forces that might have been stoking the fire, I think we would put that to an end this evening at the meeting.”

The National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said the party would have good news for the nation by Tuesday, adding that a lot was achieved during the brief meeting.

“Everything is upbeat. You can see that I am smiling. You will be very surprised that a lot was achieved in 20 minutes. As the chairman of the party, I can say that there are no discordant tunes. You can see the Speaker of the House standing firmly beside me and I have a feeling that in another three or four hours, and by tomorrow, we will have good news for the nation. It is never too late to straighten the path,” the chairman of the ruling party said.

Dogara, who had always led the rebels, said he had always remained on the side of the party. “I have always stood firmly by the party. There has never been a time that I never stood firmly by the party. So, like my chairman has explained, we are going into consultations with the party and I am sure that sooner than later, we will have good news for Nigeria,” he said.

It was learnt that the President advised the warring lawmakers to go back and consult widely as mature legislators, with each of the groups holding their separate meetings to review their stance.

Observers of President Buhari and his relationship with the National Assembly strongly believe that the President has found it easier to ‘forgive’ Dogara but not Saraki. The President had met with the Speaker of the House on few occasions but he has refused to grant the Senate President any audience. Saraki’s call on former President Olusegun Obasanjo and other emissaries to pacify President Buhari has not yielded any positive result.

One of the observers is a former Governor of old Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, who told SUNDAY PUNCH that the President’s intervention was in the right direction. While he admitted that the President might be aggrieved with and not be disposed to meeting with lawmakers in the Senate, he said Buhari needed the Senate to approve his appointees and projects.

Balarabe said, “That is the right thing. If the members of the party in the National Assembly and the party (APC) cannot agree, the best solution in the interest of the party is for the President to intervene. He has intervened and the crisis has been resolved in the House of Representatives. We are waiting to see the same thing happen in the Senate.”

It was later learnt that Dogara, shortly before plenary resumed on Tuesday, invited all the actors to his back office, where they negotiated for about one hour before they finally struck an agreement.

Therefore, when Dogara announced the names of the remaining principal officers, and they happened to be those nominated by the APC, the House was thrown into wild jubilation, especially by those from the Gbajabiamila camp, with some of them calling Dogara a “hero”.

Attributing the resolution to President Buhari’s intervention, the Chairman, House Ad Hoc Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Sani Zoro, said, “We want to use this opportunity to thank Mr. President for his 20-minute meeting; it was very crucial. What Mr. President did was a fatherly engagement; what he did has clearly shown that he is not the so-called dictator that our opponents wanted to paint him.”

Expressing his belief that peace has returned to the House at last, Gbajabiamila said, “What you saw in the last 49 days was actually democracy in action. That is what politics is all about; everybody is trying to outwit everybody for the greater good of the country. I am glad that everything has panned out the way it has panned out. You will now see the House you knew in the last four years back in action, working for the people, working for the nation. I am sure we will have a lot more to say tomorrow.”

Observers of what happened at the House during the crisis had said should Dogara go ahead to defy APC’s formula and announce the names on list of his faction, the party might have lost its structure at the National Assembly completely. It would be recalled that not only did Saraki defy the APC to become the Senate President; the position of the Deputy Senate President was ‘sold’ to the minority and opposition PDP. Not done, he went ahead to name the occupants of other principal offices from his camp, saying his hands were tied to accept the nominations made by his party.

In his analysis, a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Saleh Dauda, who also agreed with President Buhari’s intervention in the crisis, said it was expected that the two warring sides would sheathe their swords.

Dauda added, “But then, we have to wait and see when the various committees are constituted and the chairmen appointed. That could be another area of friction because Dogara has his supporters and Gbajabiamila has his supporters too.”

He, however, admitted that the crisis in the Senate was more complicated. “To be very frank, the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, was more determined to go his way and against his party’s directives. He has violated almost all the directives from the party. In the case of Dogara, at least, he waited and was able to incorporate the party’s directive by accepting Gbajabiamila as the House Leader. But Saraki is bolder and has the capacity to do whatever he wants to do and get away with it.”

As analysts believe that the crisis in the House of Representatives may be over, it is not the same for the Senate. The upper chamber is already enmeshed in another scandal – forgery of the Senate Standing Order or Rules. While prosecution awaits the suspects in the crime categorised as felonious, some senators had gone to court to sack the leadership of the Senate which was elected on the basis on the controversial amendments. Another group had also prayed a court to stop the appointment of senators into Standing Committees.

Summarising the crisis in the National Assembly, a Commissioner for Education and Health in the defunct Western State, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, stated that the Nigerian political parties were not properly constituted to make them competitive with their counterparts in advanced democracies.

He said, “The crisis going on did not start with the National Assembly as constituted now; the origin of the crisis is from the respective political parties. The political parties are not properly constituted; they are not properly structured. If you know what happens in the civilised realms, what is happening in Nigerian today is, quite frankly and more or less, an aberration of political party system where there is no cohesion; where there is no authority and principles are not observed; where the party is really and truly not superior.”

The elder statesman, who was a close political ally of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, stated that “there must be superiority of the party, party discipline and party loyalty.” According to him, all these principles are absent in the parties in Nigeria today. “That is why you are getting what you are getting.”

Ajayi insisted that the problem did not start with the 8th Assembly. He stated that the trend might persist until Nigeria had really arrived as a country.

He stated further, “We have not arrived. When we started in 1960 as a sovereign country, we were on the same level of awareness and development as Brazil, China, India and Russia. All these countries are now ahead of us in every aspect. This is a country where an important part of it was running free education for which it acquired a lot of reputation; this reputation has now gone to the dogs. We now cannot afford free education in the country but we can steal money in the millions. And when the money is stolen, it is taken to other countries, and used to develop the respective countries.”

According to the retired politician, Nigeria lacks strong national institutions, including strong legislative bodies, strong judiciary and well focused and committed executive. “We have none of these,” Ajayi stated.