“For politicians, loyalty to party, which in practice has to mean the party leadership is the supreme morality. If this is the yardstick for measuring success, then Femi Gbajabiamila is right on course as a well rounded politician.”
This is an excerpt from the political memoirs of Gbajabiamila “Fearless,” written by Wale Okediran. This may well have captured the political personality of Gbajabiamila, who defiantly defended “party supremacy,” in his failed speakership bid and his eventual emergence as majority leader of the 8th House of Representatives.
Gbajabiamila two days after his emergence as House leader, revealed that he was on the verge of dumping his House leadership bid after the contest was portrayed as a personal ambition, instead of a struggle to ensure party supremacy.
According to Gbajabiamila, President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressive Congress (APC) leadership, however, declined his offer to withdraw from the race.
“A lot of people do not know this, but long time ago, I saw the President, I saw my party, I explained to them that this thing has been framed to be about me. So I said I wanted to withdraw for the sake of the House and the country. I told them I would leave this thing in a heartbeat without even thinking about it and I will go and sit on the floor of the House, without even accepting anything, not even chairmanship. I have never been a committee chairman or deputy, I have never even asked. So I told them, I have turned things down,” Gbajabiamila revealed.
“But on principle, the President did not accept it, my party did not accept it, and I thank God for the kind of confidence they have in me to be able to deliver the goods for the party. Who am I to say no? It was on principle that we stayed the course,” he added.
Throwback
On June 25, when the House embarked on a recess, proceedings in the House turned rowdy and almost bloody after an attempt by Abdullahi Balarabe Salame to snatch the mace – the House symbol of authority- drew the members into a free-for-all.
The ugly development followed Dogara’s refusal, to read a June 23 letter from the APC national chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, which directed that Gbajabiamila (South-west) be made majority leader, Alhassan Ado (North-west), deputy majority leader, Tahir Monguno (North-east), chief whip and Pally Iriase (South-south), deputy chief whip.
Dogara replied Odigie-Oyegun’s letter, rejecting the latter’s directive on the sharing of majority principal officers positions in the House and also insisted on the adherence to the constitutionally-backed federal character principle in the selection. According to Dogara, the North-east and South-west have been settled with the speakership and deputy speakership positions respectively, hence should be excluded from the remaining four principal positions in favour of other zones.
Dogara rather proposed a new zoning arrangement for the distribution of principal offices in the House to wit: speaker, Yakubu Dogara (North-east); deputy speaker, Yusuf Sulaimon Lasun (South-west); House leader, North-west (with 86 APC members); deputy House leader, North-central (with 33 APC members); chief whip, South-south and deputy chief whip, South-east.
The speaker’s new zoning proposal tagged “Dogara Formula,” later adopted two members of the rival “Loyalist” faction, but excluded Gbajabiamila.
In a July 8 statement, issued by the “174 APC Loyalists Group” of the House, the faction said that in line with party supremacy resolution, reached at last APC’s NEC meeting, the position of the party on Femi Gbajabiamila as the House leader was non-negotiable.
The group submitted that precedences were set in the 6th and 7th assemblies, where a single zone, the North-west, produced two and three principal officers, respectively.
“We understand that the Dogara group is now playing the zoning card, after same group had hitherto before the speakership election of June 9th, 2015 rejected the zoning formula of the party prior to the mock election. Interestingly the six geopolitical zones in the country are not recognised by the constitution. But if they wish to play the zoning card then the Senate and House cannot be headed by the North,” Hon Rufai Chachangi submitted in a statement on behalf of the group.
Chachangi dismissed the issue of the South-east being denied a principal officer’s seat in the House as “hogwash.” The zones’ two-member APC caucus were dismissed for not possessing “cognate legislative experience” – a key requirement of the House Standing Orders for principal positions.
Volte-face
Facts have emerged as to how the warring factions resolved the leadership crisis internally in a last-minute decision to avoid going for caucus elections.
After Monday’s meeting, President Buhari held with factions, led by Dogara, and Gbajabiamila, the factions also held other rounds of meetings late into the night with John Odigie-Oyegun.
It is learnt that among the decisions taken was that either the members resolved the crisis amicably or the APC House members conduct a caucus election for the principal officers to emerge.
Meanwhile, the APC leadership resolved to drop its preferred candidates contained in the letter but retain the zoning arrangement as earlier communicated to Dogara. A text message circulated to lawmakers early Tuesday indicated caucus elections between will hold Tuesday and Wednesday.
The message read in part: “The resolution reached by both parties tonight at the national chairman’s house at about 12:11am is that the party’s letter stands. However, names earlier attached to the letter would be removed. While members at the zonal caucus level would elect their various leaders…, the zonal caucuses’ election would be conducted by the party between today and tomorrow. The party is likely to brief the press today (Tuesday).
“Should the Dogara camp do anything contrary to this latest agreement on the floor this morning, it would be strange and amount to an affront to our collective interest, including that of the President.”
The option of a caucus election panicked the factions, as neither was sure of its loyalist numerical strengths if elections held. This uncertainty forced the camps to adopt the formula of sharing the four principal positions among the factions.
Dogara later announced the positions around 3.19pm on Tuesday, making the option of elections unnecessary.
The speaker named Gbajabiamila (South-west) as majority leader; Buba Jibrin (North-central), as the deputy leader; and Ado-Doguwa (North-west ) as the chief whip. The post of deputy whip, said to have been promised the South-east by Dogara, went to Pally Iriase (South-south).
Post crisis
The defeat suffered by the ‘anointed’ candidates of the ruling APC in the June 9 National Assembly leadership election highlighted the tug-of-war among the coalition parties that brought President Buhari to power. Despite APC having majority seats in the Senate and in the House, candidates backed by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rather got elected.
As it stands, the struggle for power within the party is being fought by three political power blocs: the Buhari/defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) caucus; Bola Tinubu/defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)/South-west caucus and the Atiku Abubakar/Bukola Saraki/NPDP caucus. Another school define the political tussle as a straight fight between the party’s northern elements from NPDP against South-west interests led by APC’s national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
After the presidential election, Atiku forged a new alliance with other power blocs within the APC – G5 governors; immediate past speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and other politicians that decamped from PDP to APC in 2013 to present a parallel power arrangement within the party.
The politicians had a common adversary – Tinubu. They plotted to cut him to size. The Atiku-led political bloc decided to throw up Bukola Saraki as Senate president and Yakubu Dogara as House of Representatives speaker to thwart Tinubu’s percieved inroad to the National Assembly. Atiku’s bloc, today, takes Saraki and Dogara’s emergence as its own share in the APC 2015 election victory.
Monitors say the party leadership’s inability to rise above personal interests which has been characterised by imposition of candidates and weak internal party democracy, triggered the severe divisions the party, grappled with.
These are tricky times for the party. Nigerians patiently watch to see how the party and the Buhari executive would work to deliver on its lofty “change” promises, especially given the divergent and powerful political interest that wretle within the party.
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