Saraki Matters

Loyalty is a fine quality, but in excess it fills political graveyards. Neil Kinnock

 

Of all the ghosts from the past that haunt the All Progressives Congress the (APC) none is as significant as the person and circumstances surrounding Senate President Bukola Saraki. In fact, it is safe to say he embodies all the complex elements and nuances that are captured in the phenomenon that became the APC, and the nation is witnessing their unfolding. His conviction by the Code of Conduct Tribunal is (CCT) is one possible outcome out of many, as the past catches up with a present and a threatens to shape a future that appears poorly prepared to handle the impact. 

History of the APC will accord substantial place to Saraki and other members of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) who defected into a fledgling APC, giving it muscle, numbers and resources. Even more significantly, their defection mortally wounded the PDP, making it even weaker to resist the onslaught of a party that promised Nigerians major changes in their lives. Saraki’s hand was in every move from the original but historic walk out by some governors from the PDP, to his decision not to stand against General Buhari for the party’s flag, to the campaigns and the victory of the APC. For them, the stakes were very high for both victory and defeat of the APC. Defeat by the PDP would have confronted the defectors with serious threats to their personal and political fortunes as a vengeful PDP visited its anger and muscle over their betrayal. Success would earn them new leases of political life and front seats in an administration that was wrested from the PDP without asking too many questions over who joined in the historic struggle and why.

The heat of the battle to unseat PDP drowned voices that cautioned against wholesale and unquestioning accommodation of all elements, their resources, their records against the very opposition they are joining and their ambitions in the new party. Not that anyone would have listened, given the key objective of the battle: change the PDP as the ruling party. The difficult issue involving the exact nature of the change and its drivers was assumed to be one that will be easier to sort out under the massive influence of President Buhari and the army of party generals who gave the party its clout, and tapped into the unprecedented desire for new leadership in the nation.

The rather simplistic assumption that everyone will play by the rules, and wait for the starters’ gun was breached in a scramble led by Saraki, whose political antenna for opportunity pointed at some vulnerable points in President Buhari’s politics. Defying Buhari, the party and the unwritten philosophy of the new party which hinted at respect for leaders and chieftains, restraining personal ambitions, reinforcing the boundaries between the APC and PDP and generally not raising your flags higher than others’, Saraki moved quickly to secure the Senate Presidency. Not the claim of innocence, or compliance with due process, or the pledge of loyalty to President Buhari and the party, or the legions of mediators, peacemakers or palliatives would remove from Saraki the toga of betrayal and rehabilitate him as a trusted and important ally with whom the President and the party could be comfortable.

From there on, the story began to be told in tongues and in a manner less visible to simpler sights. President Buhari put up a brave face and said he would work with Saraki, the Senate President. When the grounds began to sink under Saraki’s feet with the reincarnation of his case with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the presidency distanced itself from the matter, and the President specifically insisted, against many appeals from different sources, that he will not interfere with a judicial process. The trial itself set the cat among many different pigeons. The PDP, a major facilitator and beneficiary of Saraki’s emergence as Senate President found new and additional uses as his protector and potentially the winner at the end of what appears to be an undeclared civil war. Many of the Senators with huge files at the EFCC saw themselves in the image of Saraki, and rallied around him. APC Senators were split right down the middle, as patronage politics and the manipulation of the many avenues available to leadership of the Senate to keep Senators loyal, combined to keep many either staying out of the battle entirely, or joining Saraki’s ranks in the absence of strong pull in the other direction.

The judicial process has been stretched and tested to its limits over Saraki’s trial, and the fact that the trial is going on at all is either an indictment or an evidence of the integrity of the judicial process, depending on which opinion you defer to. The party has been largely consigned to an observer status, hamstrung by the very forces which made it unable to influence the emergence of the source of the problem in the first place. The 2016 budget has suffered from the stresses and strains of the saga, and relations between the executive and the legislature, particularly the Senate, have been badly affected.

Little will be gained by a blame game at this stage, unless it is meant to help the APC learn valuable lessons and undertake essential damage control. There are, however, key issues that need careful handling. The reckless attempt by the Senate to repeal the laws setting up the CCT and amend criminal administration provisions has mercifully been halted. The President’s steadfast commitment not to interfere with the judicial process to operate as designed should be complemented by vigilance over other powerful interests that many want to tinker with it, either in pursuance of his interests, or theirs’. The APC should prepare for all eventualities. If Saraki in convicted and ceases to be Senate President, it should expect the type of turbulence that could quite possibly deprive it of the Senate Presidency. Many of its Senators would quite happily work with a Senate President who is from the PDP, and the upper chamber on the whole could become more difficult to do business with. Not enough work is being done to keep APC Senators in line, and the anti-corruption war is daily obliterating the partisan division.

At this stage, the die is cast in terms of the conduct of the trial to its logical conclusion. No major interest is, however, likely to wait for the outcome to act. Even as he faces a trial he had fought hard to avoid, Saraki is not a finished man. Between him and his friends in and outside the Senate, he could do some serious damage to the house. PDP and APC Senators will scheme to exact advantages out of his travails. Powerful interests in the APC will prepare to beat chests over victories in clipping his wings. The fight against corruption will register a casualty, and reinforce greater resistance in quarters that ought to assist it. The party will most likely be weakened by the pervasive influence of powerful individuals who would have had their say in this saga.

President Buhari will have to deal with the consequences of a position that substantially isolates him from processes, even where he has strong interests he needs to protect. With three years to go in its mandate, the APC should learn the right lessons from the Saraki saga. One of these, hopefully, is that the past is the architect of the present, but the future is built by leaders who soil boots in the murky waters of politics to save key goals from being swamped.