OLUWAKEMI KAPSOL: Senate: PDP, APC in gale of defections?

Mark and Saraki

Following series of warning signs, the defection storm currently ravaging Nigeria’s political community has eventually hit the Senate.

Last week, eleven senators of the Peoples Democratic Party, led by a former Governor of Kwara State, Senator Bukola Saraki, announced their intention to join the opposition party, All Progressives Congress. Against all threats and persuation, they dared the leadership of the Senate, which had reportedly threatened to declare their seats vacant should they quit the PDP.

This is the upper chamber of the National Assembly – the legislative arm of government – widely believed to be a stronghold of the ruling PDP.

The Senate is widely believed to dislay more discipline and decorum on issues of national importance, maybe due to the overwhelming majority of the ruling PDP in the chamber.

Despite the reconciliatory moves by the new National Chairman of the PDP, Adamu Mu’azu, to reconcile aggrieved and warring factions in the party, Saraki, who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Ecology and Environment, on January 26 disclosed that no fewer than 17 senators of the PDP would defect to the APC.

He stated that the concerned senators had already consulted with their senatorial districts, signed their letter of defection and perfected all other strategies for the move.

As Saraki stated, news filtered in on Wednesday that 11 senators (including Saraki) had defected from the PDP to the opposition APC. The development was said to have created tension in the Senate chamber.

Reports say the lawmakers wrote a letter to the Senate leadership on Tuesday to notify the legislators of their defection. The signatories to the letter were Saraki, Adamu Abdulahi, Shaba Lafiagi, Ibrahim Gobir, Aisha Al-Hassan, Magnus Abe, Wilson Ake, Jibrilla Mohammed Bindowo, Danjuma Goje, and Ali Ndume and Umar Dahiru.

While the Senate President, David Mark, and the defecting lawmakers have since kept mum on the letter, the Interim National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Lai Mohammed, confirmed the defection.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Ita Enang, had urged the Independent National Electoral Commission to declare seats of defecting lawmakers vacant. He argued that legislators, who defected from the PDP to the APC “recently” had lost their seats (in the House of Representatives) under the constitution.

The threat came when 37 members of the PDP in the House of Representatives, on December 18, 2013, formally declared their defection to the APC. By so doing, they raised the numerical strength of the opposition party from 135 to 172 and lowered the PDP to 171 members.

The PDP has since instituted a legal battle against the defected representatives, asking a court to sack them.

Apparently to prevent the Senate leadership from carrying out its threat, 52 senators (of the 109 Senate members) reportedly wrote a letter dated January 20 to the leadership of the National Assembly to express their objection to any attempt to declare the seat of any defector in the upper house vacant.

The lawmakers warned that such vacancies should be declared only through a process of recall by their respective constituents or by the pronouncement of a court of competent and final jurisdiction, rather than “politics of intimidation, harassment and/or comment that could jeopardise the peaceful co-existence of unity of Nigeria.”

But the Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media and Public Affairs, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, dissociated Mark from Enang’s submission. He maintained that the report credited to Enang was “wholly his personal opinion, to which he is entitled, and has nothing to do with the Senate as a chamber of the National Assembly.”

Abaribe added that it, “also has nothing to do with the President of the Senate, who had in a statement assured that the leadership of the PDP would work to keep the party intact and prevent further crisis in the party.”

It remains unclear if all the 52 senators have the intention to defect to the APC.

It is worthy to note that soon after the APC gained a slight majority in the House of Representatives, the PDP got a court order restraining APC lawmakers from taking over the leadership of the House.

To stop the mass exodus of lawmakers from the party to the APC, stakeholders in the PDP had an all-night meeting on Tuesday, where the Leader, House of Representative, Mulikat Akande-Adeola, reportedly told the national executive that PDP lawmakers would remain in the party, if they were given automatic tickets for the 2015 election race.

The Abuja meeting had 11 PDP governors, members of the PDP National Working Committee, 130 members of the PDP caucus in the National Assembly in attendance.

The drama, however, surprisingly, took a new turn when the leadership of the APC ordered its lawmakers to frustrate executive bills, if the Presidency failed to restore peace to Rivers State where there has been political crisis.

A communiqué issued after a meeting read in part, “Following the forgoing and in view of the joint resolutions of the National Assembly on Rivers State, and other constitutional breaches by the Presidency, the APC hereby directs its members in the National Assembly to block all legislative proposals, including the 2014 budget and confirmation of all nominees to military and civilian positions to public office, until the rule of law and constitutionalism is restored in Rivers State in particular and Nigeria in general.”

While the order has generated criticism along party lines, with the Federal Government and the Presidency describing it as anti-people, some political analysts have expressed contrary views. To them, the legislature should not be largely dominated by a party, particularly the ruling party.

One of them, the Executive Director, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, said it was necessary for an opposition party like the APC to create an alternative government for the electorate in any democracy.

He said, “It is a good development. One of the challenges of our democracy in the past was that the ruling party had the absolute majority and there was no challenge. And everywhere in the world, that is not good for democracy. It is always better where there is a possibility that the opposition party is an alternative government, which is where we are today in Nigeria.”

On the use numerical strength in the legislature by any party to achieve its political goals, Igbuzor said it’s either Nigerian politicians were ignorant or they had yet to understand democracy.

“The directive was conditional; if they don’t respect the rule of law. If you’re in the opposition and you don’t control the army or the police, if they use the police to intimidate you continuously, what do you do? You have to do something to make the ruling party behave in accordance with the constitution and the rule of law,” Igbuzor added.

Observers have said the more APC membership becomes in the Senate, the more the peace in the chamber will become fragile, as long as the APC directive persists. If the PDP agrees to grant the lawmakers’ request for automatic tickets, it may stop or at least reduce PDP loss to the APC.

Expectedly, the PDP will make its grip on the Senate tighter, with the leadership of fourth-timers like Mark and Senate Majority Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba.

Nevertheless, the APC has said it is optimistic that its presence in the Senate will be stronger soon. Mohammed told SUNDAY PUNCH that the opposition party was also “itching towards the majority in the Senate.”

When asked if the 52 senators that wrote the protest letter were joining the APC, he said, “Already, we’re 39 and 13 are coming over. If they come over, we’ll be 52 and more would come. It used to be (a PDP stronghold); there was a time when there were only 18 senators from the Action Congress of Nigeria (now merged with the APC). Today, with the influx of those coming in, our voice in the Senate cannot be blocked again.” He called on Mark to note that there would soon be a balance of power in the Senate.

Should this order be followed by the opposition in the Senate, imbroglios are imminent on the floor of the chamber. Some political analysts have said the development may end the era of unanimous agreement to motions and, more importantly, bills by the lawmakers.

The Head, Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lagos, Prof. Solomon Akinboye, however, submitted that having two dominant political parties in a legislative house would not be counterproductive, especially when issues of national importance were to be debated. To him, it is a good omen for Nigerian democracy.

He said, “If you have a strong party and you have a strong opposition, it is a better phenomenon. I don’t think any party is suppressing the other; what we have is a stronger party in power and a strong opposition. Here, you have a scenario of checks and balances.”