By Shuaib Shuaib
President Muhammadu Buhari did not set out to form a government of national unity. In fact, from his campaigns over the last four elections, his political goals have always been the annihilation of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party. But with the election of a PDP senator as the deputy president of the Senate, he is being forced into a loveless marriage of sort with the same party that has for years given him sleepless nights.
Back in 1999, things did not quite work out for Obasanjo when he chose to name Bola Ige of the opposition Alliance for Democracy as his Attorney General and Minister of Justice. It was no secret that Ige, using the cabinet position to promote his ambition, had plans to challenge Obasanjo in the next
presidential election of 2003. For Obasanjo, this would have been a problem because he could not afford to have the South-west divided between him and another candidate.
But as event would turn out, Ige did not live to mount that challenge. Who however did challenge Obasanjo in that election was Buhari of the defunct ANPP. That Obasanjo and Buhari have not always seen eye to eye is public knowledge.As president, and later the Board of Trustees chairman of the PDP, Obasanjo was at the forefront of working against the election of Buhari as president. Buhari himself, along with millions of other Nigerians believed then and maybe still believe that in those elections from 2003 to 2011, he was simply rigged out.
The president felt so strongly about how elections were conducted and the results treated at election tribunals that he even stopped attending council of state meeting. In a way, it would have been hypocritical for him to sit and chat with the same set people who were at the centre of what he saw as electoral fraud.
For Buhari to now find that he is bound to that same PDP in a coalition at the National Assembly must come to him as a nightmare. It would have been much different if his party, the All Progressives Congress had lost majority seats in the Senate and the president knew he would be facing a hostile legislature. But his party swept the National Assembly polls and yet it was Ike Ekweremadu of the PDP that emerged as deputy Senate president following a failed attempt by the APC to stop one its own senators, Bukaola Saraki, from emerging as Senate President. Ekweremadu’s emergence as deputy Senate President is bad for everyone. It is bad for the APC, bad for the president and in the long run; it is bad for the future of Saraki in the APC.
Even for Ekweremadu himself, it isn’t such a good idea considering that his has publicly stated that it intends to effectively play the role of opposition and has already been critical of certain actions or inactions of the president. What this ensures is that Ekweremadu will consistently be caught in the middle; to either promote and support the president and APC’s agenda or back the PDP in opposition, coming with alternative policies and agenda. In the end, only the PDP gets to benefit from having Ekweremadu as deputy Senate president because it is a perfect platform for the party to frustrate the president’s agenda.
Even for the PDP, it may appear now that they have pulled a fast one on the ruling APC, but there is no guarantee that Ekweremadu’s heart will remain with his party when he has been placed in a position to work with the APC and the president. In past governments, opposition figures that had the opportunity to work with a president ended up decamping to the ruling party. It happened with former ANPP chairman Mahmud Waziri and with Sen. Bala Mohammed. The one person that was not seduced from working closely with a president was Bola Ige.
As much as it took an alliance of all major opposition parties and a large number of decamped governors and lawmakers from PDP for Buhari to finally defeat the party at an election; he has stated that politicians who recently decamped to the APC should not expect political appointments. Yet, the president must find a way out of the present predicament in the Senate. But before he can even open up communication lines with the PDP and Ekweremadu to get him to resign as deputy Senate president, he must repair the rift between Saraki and the leadership of APC.
As things stand now, Saraki does not have the confidence of his party or that of the president, which is reason enough for him to block Ekweremadu’s replacement as deputy Senate president. Saraki sees Ekweremadu and the PDP as the only safeguard from losing his seat. But the longer it remains so, the wider the rift between him APC will grow; putting into question, his long term place in the ruling party. Unless addressed, it’s a problem that most likely won’t go away.
In negotiating a way out, the president may have inadvertently ruled out offering cabinet positions to PDP. Also out of the question is the deputy Senate president decamping to APC. He cannot legally do this without losing his seat in the Senate.
Under the law, an elected official can only change parties if there is a faction in his/her party. The last year of Jonathan’s presidency saw five governors and some lawmakers dump the PDP for the APC and they all didn’t lose their seats.
They only decamped after holding a parallel convention of the party, which they used as a pretext to change parties. The immediate past speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, also later decamped from PDP at a time when there was no appearance of a faction in the party
. Yet, the political establishment turned a blind eye and the wheels of justice were deliberately slowed. One reason could be that the political atmosphere was already tense and the general election was around the corner.
Now, if the entire APC leadership, aggrieved senators and the presidency agree on a negotiating process with PDP to get Ekweremadu to resign; an option would be for APC to redraw their challenge to the governorship elections in several states including Rivers and Akwa Ibom at the election tribunals. It may not serve the interest of the deputy Senate president but could be heaven sent for his party. The party can find a way to internally compensate Ekweremadu.
Shuaib wrote from Abuja
