The high drama which characterized the election of the new Speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday, 6th June 2011 showed the good, the bad and the ugly faces of Nigerian politics. There will be many perspectives on the outcome of an election which produced Representative Aminu Waziri Tambuwal as the Speaker against a most desperate effort by the Presidency and his own Party, the PDP to stop him. Many of these perspectives will not fail to notice that the landslide victory of Speaker Tambuwal against the Presidency’s and PDP’s candidate would have upset much of the apple cart of the ruling Party, and would require much rethinking on the part of those who think they have an unchallenged control over Nigeria’s political affairs. There is also much in the development to give some comfort to those Nigerians who want to see some semblance of the operations of a democratic system which is not under the total domination of a powerful Presidency and a single Party.
The good side of the drama Nigerians watched live on Television was the emphatic assertion of the right of the Members of the House of Representatives to elect their own leaders. This contrasted very sharply against the engineered, unopposed emergence of Senator David Mark as Senate President. Although the unseen hand of much of the opposition was evident in defeating the PDP’s and President’s candidate, it was also obvious that many PDP members defied threats and many other intimidation tactics of their own party leadership to vote against its candidate, and elect another candidate who represents a real challenge to the attempt by the executive arm to manipulate the emergence of a leadership in both chambers of the National Assembly. The House of Representatives thus lived up to its reputation as the chamber with a stronger sense of obligation to the mandate of the Nigerian electorate. History has recorded that it was this same chamber which scuttled the third-term bid of the former, now expired, President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The negative angle of this development is that in spite of its failure, the drama in the House showed clearly how desperate the executive arm is to take full control of the leadership of the legislature. The former Speaker was arrested a day before the high drama, ostensibly on suspicion of corruption. The new Speaker and Deputy Speaker had to enter the chambers disguised in order to avoid possible arrest. There were many legal skirmishes on the rules of the elections, with widespread suspicions that the Presidency and the PDP were attempting to change the rules. The PDP had rolled out all its big guns to flatten all opposition against a candidate from a zone which had produced only three members PDP in the entire chamber, and even had to out-flank the former President Olusegun Obasanjo who, in spite of losing total control of the South West geo-political zone, still nursed the hope that he could single-handedly facilitate the emergence of the nation’s fourth most power elected person. The election of Speaker Tambuwal, although by a wide margin, will inevitably create camps in the House, and there is likely to be prolonged turbulence and instability before the chamber settles down to business. He will have to find his way around the formidable anger and hostility of the Presidency and his Party, and will remain constantly vigilant against attempts to impeach him and install another candidate from the South West.
Now that the election of Tambuwal has scuttled the PDP’s zoning arrangement, the Party has to go back to the drawing board. The situation right now is that the South West and the North East have none of the six zoned offices; the South East has the Deputy Senate President and the SGF; the North Central has the Senate President; the North West has the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives; and the South South has the President and the Deputy Speaker. Perhaps it is time for the Party to re-examine the political utility of its zoning and rotation principle, particularly when it zones offices irrespective of the Party’s performance or acceptance; and in a context where its rotation policy is in tatters after the candidature and election of President Goodluck Jonathan. Some perceptive PDP loyalists may also come to the conclusion that the game is up for the PDP as far as its dominance of national politics is concerned. In spite of its performance in the last elections, the facts indicate that it has only a firm control in North Central and South South geo-political zones. It has been uprooted in the South West. It is fighting a losing battle against APGA in the South-East, and against the CPC in the North West. The ANPP is still a force in many parts of the North as well.
It is also quite clear that opposition Parties have had a strong influence in the outcome of the election of Tambuwal against the PDP’s candidate. The ACN in particular appears to have instructed its Representatives to vote for Tambuwal and defeat the PDP’s candidate from the South West in order to make a stronger case for itself as the leading opposition Party. The gang-up against the PDP candidate and the embarrassing rebellion against the heavy-handed tactics of the PDP leadership show clearly that the PDP has no assured control over the affairs of the nations’ politics. Its attempt to engineer the emergence of the entire leadership of the legislative arm has been an expensive misadventure, and the Party will do well to come to terms with the fact that it has a difficult terrain to operate within.
Now that the PDP administration has suffered a setback in its bid to take control over much of the Nigerian political space, Nigerians are likely to raise their comfort thresholds. Many people will also hope that the Presidency and the PDP will accept this setback in the spirit of democratic competition. The Presidency in particular should welcome the decision of the House of Representatives and allow Speaker Tambuwal and his Deputy to settle down immediately and lead the House without any hindrance. The Speaker and his Deputy should also move to mend fences with their colleagues; they must acknowledge the steadfast loyalty of their colleagues, not so much to their leadership, but to the inherent independence and integrity of the legislature. They should reward the members of the House with honest, competent and courageous leadership. This way, they can be assured of the protection of the members, and the Nigerian people.
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