Buhari: The Frenemies Called National Assembly
The gradual build-up of tension, usually associated with impending elections, heightened last week when the Senate decided to suspend, for 90 legislative days, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, representing Delta Central senatorial district (the entire Urhobo nation) in the Senate, over what was perceived as a scathing accusation against the Senate. The suspension, penultimate Thursday, came even after the senator, had apologized for the poorly conveyed accusation. Suspending Omo-Agege was to further send warning signals to other members of the Presidential Support Group in the National Assembly, headed by Omo-Agege, to chill or be shown the way out as well.
What may have further irked the Senate was the taking of the matter to court by Senator OmoAgege. However, one unstated anger was when Omo-Agege and some other seven senators were part of a presidential delegation to condole with the late Senator Mustapha Bukar’s family, in Katsina State. The Senate President, Bukola Saraki felt peeved that another set of senators yet went on condolence visit and got greater media attention than that of the Senate’s ‘official’ team. It only reinforced his suspicion that Omo-Agege was making moves towards splitting the Senate.
Trouble actually started long before the recent deaths in the Senate. Most of the disquiet in the National Assembly, particularly the Senate is all about the 2019 elections. It is basically a mass up against the 2019 re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Surprisingly, Buhari seems to be having more opposition to his re-election bid from the National Assembly dominated by members of his political party—the APC.
So, question is, why are his fellow partymen so determined to stop him on his tracks? Many have said the problem is that many of the National lawmakers are APC in name and PDP in spirit. And that is why someone aptly described them as frenemies (friendly enemies) to both President Buhari and the entire party structure.
The National Assembly, despite all the preachments for unity and co-operation cannot be trusted to be on the same page with the executive. There is a running state of mutual suspicion and distrust between the two arms.
Indeed, that is why the leadership of the Senate is rather hostile and intolerant of members who seem to be overtly supportive of the Buhari candidacy. One major proof of the above is the amendment of section 25 of the Electoral Act 2010 which became the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
For some weird reason, the lawmakers suddenly decided to tinker with the sequence of the general election.
In the proposed amendment, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) fixed the presidential and National Election for Saturday, February 16, 2019, and the governorship and State Assembly election for March 2, 2019, the lawmakers, starting from the House of Representatives, decided to reverse the sequence by making the presidential election come last. It does not require deep understanding to know that the target of such a move was the president, who seems to have lost the support of many of the members of the National Assembly, particularly the Senate.
The unstated but obvious strategy is to ensure that national lawmakers would have got elected on the platform of the party, and thereafter possibly withdraw their support during the presidential election, thus jeopardising the re-election of President Buhari.
And that was the accusation Senator Ovie Omo-Agege levelled against the Senate that drew the ire of the leadership.
But is it not true that Mr President is the target of the so-called amendment? Why are the lawmakers pretending? Do they not know?
If it were untrue, has the National Assembly given any reason—convincing or otherwise— why they jumped into the fray of changing the sequence of elections? Is that not a legislative trespass into the functions and duties of the INEC? Is it in the place of the National Assembly to determine how and when elections should be conducted?
A certain loud senator from one of the Middle Belt states tried to push the specious argument that the INEC can only determine the date of an election and not the order or sequence of it. He is very wrong! The order, date and mode of the election are all within the preserve of the INEC. No arguments about that!
It is however relieving that last Wednesday, both chambers of the National Assembly seem to have backpedalled on the move by stepping down their proposed amendments and reverting to the INEC-drawn election order.
The Genesis of the Frosty Relationship
Indeed, there has been no love lost between the executive and legislative arms of government. And it all springs from the beginning. The present leadership of the National Assembly was not those originally tipped by the stakeholders of the party. Indeed, the National Assembly has the full right of electing from among themselves whoever they want to lead them. Thus, the interference by extraneous factors and influences has, all the while, been the reason for mistrust and root cause of disquiet in the National Assembly. The “unorthodox” means by which Saraki and Yakubu Dogara emerged as the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively, thus created the foundational bad blood between both arms.
Matters were further worsened with the trial of Saraki for false assets declaration. He perceived the trial as the executive plot to destablise him and possibly edge him out of the number three position. The consequence is not only a frosty relationship and mutual suspicion, Saraki has literally held the executive by the balls, using
Some have it early in life, some others stumble into it midway into the course of life. And for others, it crawls gradually but assuredly unto them, just before the sun sets. The latter lot is what has become the fortune of Pa Ogbodo, the father of Abraham Obomeyoma, Ogbodo, the Editor of The Guardian, who will be crowned King today. As you read this, we, the friends and allies of the younger Ogbodo, are converging on Oghara Agbarha-Otor, in Ughelli North Local Government Area, of Delta State to witness the coronation of Pa Amos Orovwomoriemu Ogbodo Idibiagu, as the Okpako Orere (meaning oldest man of the community) of Oghara Agbarha-Otor. The King is ascending the throne at age 104, having been born circa 1914. It is called gerontocracy—the rule by the oldest.
For the King, this is his morning. It is morning yet on creation day. Among the Urhobo, there is the belief that whenever a man wakes up is his morning. So for HRM Ogbodo the trial as a bargaining chip for most actions, moves and desires of the executive. Consequently, the executive has thus not enjoyed any form of cordial cooperation from the upper chamber, contrary to the public posture.
Remotely, that explains why a month into the second quarter of the year, the 2018 budget has not been passed, with just a month or so to the full blast of the rainy season. There appears a plot to undo the Buhari government.
And if as it is said, the friend of my enemy is my enemy, then those believed to be chummy with President Buhari are rightly or wrongly, perceived as the enemies of Saraki and his ilk. Little wonder there is an order to disband the PSG , in breach of their right to free association. That is the denouement that explains why pro-Buhari lawmakers seem to bear the additional loathsome burden from the legislative leadership. And one of the things they suffer under Saraki’s leadership is that those perceived to be pro-Buhari are hardly allowed to speak on the floor of the Senate. That thus explains the anti-Buhari vibes that regularly echo from the red chamber. Last week, Senator Enyinnaya Harcourt Abaribe (Abia, PDP) described President Buhari, most uncouthly, as “incompetent” to the silent glee of the chamber’s leadership.
That is the same Abaribe who stood surety for Nnamdi Kanu, who has since jumped bail.
Too often, it is an acceptable pastime among the lawmakers to keep tearing down President Buhari and the APC government in a manner that queries the party affinity that should pervade the actions of the legislature from the leadership to the rank and file of the party.
Pa Amos Orovwomoriemu Ogbodo Pa Amos Orovwomoriemu Ogbodo Does the Senate Have the Powers to Suspend its Member?
Every organization has its own rules. Those rules help to keep the members in check by ensuring they observe the ethos in a bid to attain set goals. But where and when such in-house rules conflict with the constitution of the country, as the law maxim goes, those in-house rules have to be subordinated. In other words, the provisions of the constitution, as the grandnorm of the land, must prevail over every and any other set of laws.
Now, the Senate or the larger legislature is not like an ordinary town union meeting. It’s fully guided by the provisions of the Nigerian constitution, which every member has sworn to uphold. So, is there any section of the Nigerian constitution that prescribes the suspension of any lawmaker by the leadership of the legislature? No! I dare say. The constitution approves that only death, recall by constituency and decampment from a divided party on which a lawmaker was elected, are grounds for loss of seat in the Senate, NOT suspension by its leadership.
However, under the Legislative Houses (Powers and Privileges) Act 2018, a member of a Legislative House who “is guilty of contempt” of that House may be suspended but not more than Idibiagu, this is just his morning and we cannot but relish the fresh breeze of dawn blowing the people of Agbarha today. And so we congratulate His Royal Majesty, and wish him a very long and remarkable reign on the throne.
Perhaps it is not by accident. It is genetic. Pa Idibiagu’s own father had also reigned as the Okpara-Uku (oldest man) of Orogun Kingdom, many years ago, joining his forebears in 1977.
If that follows logically, then Abraham, my boy (he never admits) will yet have a very long time to hang around on this side of the hemisphere. He has long been in the mode for a long race; what with his all-round grey hair over 15 years ago, which we thought was hasty or stress-induced. Now we know it is an established hoary sign for one destined for life’s marathon.
And in pursuance of the noble act of charity, a virtue he learnt from Orogun Grammar School, our alma mater, Abraham is also donating to his community secondary school, a block of four classrooms, which he single-handedly built and dedicates to Mama R’ode (grandma) 48 hours. Dissenting is neither contemptuous nor an offence under this Act.
What’s more, the Senate Rules in Order 67(4), says a senator cannot be suspended for more than 14 days.
So the question is: where did Saraki’s Senate derive the power to slam a 180-day (and ‘mercifully’ reduced to 90-day) suspension on a fellow senator? Ninety legislative days is almost eight months! Is that not an abuse of power and privilege by the Senate leadership? If Saraki, the presiding officer, as a medic, does not understand the spirit and codes of the legislative rules, does he not have a legal adviser? Are there no lawyers in the red chamber? Many lawyer-senators seem knocked into silence by the emperor-status of Saraki
Yes, senators have often been suspended, almost whimsically in the past. But does that make it right? During the period of the suspension, who will fend for and project the interest of the constituency from which the suspended senator is elected? Would such suspension not deny the concerned constituents the right to representation? That is why the framers of the constitution ensured that no room was ever given for the suspension of a lawmaker. Gosh, if lawmakers do not obey their own laws, who will?
But if all the above would not convince Saraki and co that lawmakers ought not be suspended, there are subsisting judgments by established courts in the country that have ruled against it. Even Dino Melaye, while a member of the House of Reps and fought and got suspended indefinitely from the House, he challenged the suspension in court and got a judgment declaring that suspension as illegal and unconstitutional. This is the same Melaye that is now championing the suspension of fellow senators.
Similarly, Senator Ali Ndume challenged his suspension in court in case file FHC/ABJ/ CS/551/2017 and the court ruled in his favour, few days to the expiration of his suspension. It is against the backdrop of the many court judgments forbidding the NASS leadership from suspending its members that Ovie Omo-Agege decided to resume sitting believing that the previous judgments on the matter lifts the suspension bar against him.
In all of these rulings against the National Assembly, not on one occasion has the National Assembly appealed the rulings and got its position upheld. So which law is the leadership of the National Assembly operating? Are they law unto themselves? Surely, they cannot operate above the law of the land, just because they are lawmakers. No! That will be a recipe for social chaos.
The Snatching of the Mace
Last Wednesday, a worrisome drama took place in the hallowed chamber when certain persons stormed the Senate and snatched away the mace, after breaking through the security architecture in the National Assembly. today. The classrooms will be officially handed over to the school authority today. It is a perfect show of giving back to the society that has brought you forth. I congratulate Abraham for the show of his Catholic spirit, all the time, almost.