Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Party Supremacy: APC Faces Acid Test Over National Assembly Leadership —Raymond Mordi

Femi Gbajabiamila

Ahead of today’s inauguration of the National Assembly, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has picked Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila as its consensus candidates for the Senate presidency and House of Representatives speakership. But, other aspirants to the two offices are kicking. They have vowed to contest the positions in defiance of the party’s directive to stick with its position. Will party supremacy count today on the floor of the National Assembly? Asks Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI.

The rancour generated within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) by the race to elect the National Assembly leadership will perhaps be the first test for the party that has just been voted into power to give the country a new direction. As a party that rode to power on the ‘change’ mantra, the APC, according to observers, must do things differently if it must deliver on its pre-election promises. It must get all the issues pertaining to leadership, responsibility and discipline right from the starting point.

The Nation report continues:
Officially, the party has ruled out the application of a zoning formula in the election of leaders in  the Eighth National Assembly. It has stated that merit will be used in determining the outcome of today’s contest.

The Northeast and the Northcentral are locked in the battle to produce the Senate President and the fight for the House of Representatives speakership is between the Southwest and the Northeast. The battle, which is reminiscent of the party’s presidential primaries, has seen the powerful caucuses within its fold scheming to determine the principal officers in the Red and Green Chambers.

There are divergent views between President Muhammadu Buhari and the party leadership. The President has not left anyone in doubt that he does not want to repeat the mistakes made by previous governments, by insisting on particular candidates.

But, the party leadership feels that such an important matter cannot be left to the whims and caprices of influential caucuses within the legislature.

At the weekend, it moved to ensure that its members go into the chambers undivided. It selected its consensus candidates at a mock contest, where Senators Ahmed Lawan (Yobe State) and George Akume (Benue State) emerged as the APC’s candidates for the positions of Senate President and Deputy Senate President. Former House Minority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila (Lagos State) and Mohammed Mongonu (Borno) were also picked for the positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker. But, the contests were boycotted by supporters of Senator Bukola Saraki (Kwara State) and Yakubu Dogara (Bauchi State). They alleged marginalisation in the process.

Following the fallout, the APC has asked its members to abide by the party’s consensus decision and stick with Lawan and Gbajabiamila. It reminded all party faithful that the two legislative chambers are part of the vehicles for the delivery of the much-desired change to Nigerians.

According to political scientists, party supremacy presupposes that party members must be subordinated to it. The party, they say, makes the rules or policies and that any member elected on its platform is duty-bound to implement same within his/her own sphere of authority.

This, they argue is because a political party is body organized for the purpose of influencing or controlling the policies and conduct of government through nomination and election of candidates into offices.

In fact, under the 1999 Constitution, nobody can be elected into any public office without being sponsored by a political party.

Ideally, for the relationship between the party leadership and members to be cordial, the party leadership is obliged to be above board in its decision-making.

Undiluted loyalty from political office holders

As National Chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande said for the party to fulfill its campaign promises and also provide quality governance to the people, all its members must strictly abide by the tenet and ideals of the party.

Chief Akande, who spoke in Lagos at an induction training, organised by the party for elected members of the Houses of Assembly on May 24, 2011, reminded the lawmakers of the supremacy of the party. He told them that an undiluted loyalty was expected of them.

In his keynote address, Akande maintained that without any attempt to gag or deprive the members of their right, it would be of immense advantage for the party’s position if they build their legislative policies on principles since the party was progressive and development-oriented.

He told his audience: “ACN as a party of ideas which is built on principle, must be seen as a channel of control. No one, according to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, one of the foremost Nigerian political thinkers, however highly placed, is above the party, or the discipline and sanctions which the party might care to impose.

“Once the party takes a decision, it is expected that all loyal party members must abide by it because nobody is elected independently. So, once you are elected on the platform of this party, you are expected to be loyal and live by its principles.

“In your own right as a member of the House of Assembly, you have now become a leader-very important part of the party structure.”

Party greater than individual

Ex-Director-General of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Tonie Iredia, had in an article, argued that no individual should be greater than the party.

His words: “The case of Citizen Ifeanyi Araruame is germane. In 2007, Araruame, then a serving senator of the Federal Republic, aspired to govern his state (Imo) and applied to his party – the PDP – to sponsor him for the election. He was enlisted among party members for a governorship primary election to enable the party choose the best candidate.

“At the end of the exercise, the party declared him as the winner of the contest after certifying that he scored the highest number of votes. On the basis of what no one understands till date, his victory was later swapped by the party. He went to court and his plea was upheld but his party, in order to show party supremacy, worked against him and he lost the election, suggesting that the party believes in the rule of law minus some court judgments!

“A unique convention of the PDP is its expectation that its members would operate by consensus. Anyone who breaches it can be in jeopardy. On this score, political analysts who follow the party’s activities must have been taken aback the week before when it was revealed that some PDP governors failed to vote for Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State – the party’s anointed candidate for the post of Chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF).

“It is in earnest strange that the signatories to the consensus agreement turned out to be more than those that obeyed the party decision. If the party punishes some and not all the transgressors, the envisaged strong walls of party supremacy would inevitably become weakened by the lack of uniformity in handling members. Thus, for party supremacy to be credible, it cannot be used as a tool for discrimination.

Iredia said party supremacy can only thrive when no one is bigger than the party. He said the PDP was in order when it compelled its former chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, to drop his Chief of Staff because the party constitution did not provide for such a post.

Iredia said: “Yet again, a purely advisory body, led by a distinguished Second Republic Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, to help the chairman generate ideas and strategies on how to move the party forward was similarly opposed by the members because such a committee was unknown to their party’s constitution.

“One way of upholding party supremacy is to ensure that members elected into public office like governors are subordinated to the party.”

Former Works Minister Prince Adeseye Ogunlewe was of the view that a political party was virtually unquestionable and as such, any of its members who could not abide by a decision of his party should be shown the way out.

Party leaders and elected officers are equal partners who should work together for the success of their party at the polls. The main duties of party leaders, according to political scientists, are to broaden the party’s support base and lead the party to victory at the polls. Also, the rights of party members and the dictates of democracy must be paramount in all their dealings and as a result party leaders must create conditions for the party’s success and viability by observing democratic values, steering the party away from trouble and making members to feel vested in the party.

They are of the view that the tensions and conflicts inherent in the relationship between party leaders and elected officials cannot be minimized without attitudinal adjustments by both sides.

As a result, the APC has been warned not to fall into the trap that eventually led to the fall of the PDP. Under its 16-year rule, elected officials of the PDP sometimes acted against the party’s interest in the name of politics. Take governors, for instance, they are regarded as leaders of the party in their respective states. This may not be a bad in itself if such governors themselves abide by the party’s rules and prevail on others to do so. But, in most cases, the governors are the laws in themselves; they dictated to the party leadership, by determining who became a minister and who got the ticket to contest one position or the other.

One of such observers, who pleaded for anonymity, blamed the APC leadership for the present crisis over who emerges in today’s National Assembly leadership election. His words: “From day one, the party leadership told everyone that it would not abide by zoning and that members from all zones are free to contest and that the matter would be decided by merit. It is on this premise that Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara started canvassing for support for top positions in the chambers.

“It was clearly foreseen that this might lead to unnecessary division and rancor within the rank and file of our party, but the party leadership allowed the situation to fester. But, at the eleventh hour it started the move to come up with consensus candidates. If the party had made it clear from the beginning that the matter would be decided in-house, as it is now doing, there would have been no problem.”

The first and second republics

According to scholars, party supremacy was the order of the day during the First and Second Republics, because individual members of political parties were subject to the decisions of their party leaders. This was why Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, preferred to remain the leader of the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) and Premier of Northern Region, instead of becoming the Prime Minister. Under the parliamentary system, then practised in the First Republic, the Sardauna automatically ought to have become the Prime Minister, as his party won the majority seats in the parliament. Rather than occupying the position, Bello conceded it to Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, deputy leader of the party.

Similarly, during the Second Republic, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was both the leader of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the party’s presidential candidate in the 1979 general elections. Awolowo justified such arrangement, saying that while he was the party chairman, he was “just an applicant’’ for the presidency. The two frontline politicians stuck to party positions because at that time, no one dared challenge party directives, while the parties dictated the momentum of political processes.

There was no struggle for supremacy between elected political office holders and party leaders because the lines of duty were clearly defined and religiously followed.

However, the situation has changed dramatically in recent times, such that elected political office holders now call the shots.

The rancourous relationships in the political parties have been blamed on the pattern of party formation.

The argument is that there was party discipline in the first and second republics because parties were not “owned’’ by the moneybags, who did not only see themselves as bigger than the parties, but took the funding of parties as investments.

It was perhaps the need to eschew “personalisation’’ of political parties compelled the regime of military President Ibrahim Babangida to decree National Republic Convention (NRC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) into existence. Babangida dissolved all the political associations jostling for registration and created the NRC and the SDP to foster a situation where everybody will be equal members of the parties.

Analysts, however, opine that the dynamics of change will restore party supremacy in the country, as democracy cannot thrive without party supremacy. Nevertheless, they argue that party supremacy would be difficult to attain if over 50 per cent of the politicians are into politics just because they have no other job to do.

A simple majority of 55 votes of the 109 members is  required for a Senate President to emerge. As at last night, the Lawan/Akume ticket was sure of 35 APC Senators-elect support, leaving Saraki with 24.

For Lawan to win, he will need 20 votes from the PDP and for Saraki to win, he will need 31. Both camps were busy at the weekend wooing their colleagues from the PDP. But the PDP Senators-elect want to vote as a bloc and they met severally to agree on who to back between Lawan and Saraki. The meetings were deadlocked. They could not agree.

Some PDP members broached the idea of one of their ranking members running. Top among those being tipped to run is former Senate President David Mark.

Should the APC leadership fails to prevail on Saraki to step down, party supremacy would have been disrespected.
“Once the party takes a decision, it is expected that all loyal party members must abide by it because nobody is elected independently. So, once you are elected on the platform of this party, you are expected to be loyal and live by its principles”


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