Okwesilieze Nwodo, the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was not particularly happy when he arrived his office at Wadata Plaza, from the National Assembly last Monday evening. A few hours earlier, he had attended a public hearing of the bills to amend the Electoral Act 2010 during which he presented the position of the ruling party.
Mr Nwodo felt uncomfortable with the exercise, particularly the lawmakers’ defence of the proposed amendment which, if passed into law, will admit the federal lawmakers to the national executive committee of their respective parties.
According to one of his aides, the national chairman summoned a few members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to his office and within minutes, put a call across to the Senate President, David Mark and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole informing them of the intention of the leadership of the party to meet with its members in both chambers.
An agreement was reached for the PDP leadership to meet with the about 80 senators and 260 members of the House on Wednesday and quickly, Mr Nwodo’s aide on national assembly affairs went to work to make the necessary arrangement for the parley.
The agenda was obvious - the amendment bill, which the party boss and all the stakeholders who attended the public hearing, had condemned.
Before the meeting with the representatives, held in Conference Room 231, dissolved into closed-doors, Mr Nwodo said with the impending general election, it had become necessary to keep all party members, particularly the lawmakers informed of the challenges of the party.
The national chairman, who was holding the first of such meetings since he assumed office in June, also commended the lawmakers for the manner they handled the constitutional crisis induced by the long absence of the late president, Umaru Yar’Adua from the country. The introduction of the doctrine of necessity, he stated, made it possible for the transfer of presidential powers to President Goodluck Jonathan.
He also charged the lawmakers to make laws that will endure, rather than have any particular individual in mind while making laws. Speaking specifically on the contentious bill, Mr Nwodo asked the lawmakers to ensure balance in NEC and make debate robust, adding that the party would wish to see a situation where the convention rather than the NEC of the party is made the highest decision making authority in any party.
But it was gathered that the lawmakers were not pleased with Mr Nwodo’s submission and insisted they were going ahead to pass the bill, just as they advised the party to steer clear of the matter. They reportedly told the party leadership that they had got to a point where they could not back down on the bill, notwithstanding the opposition. That same Wednesday, at about 8pm, the representatives met with Mr Jonathan at the residence of the Speaker. The president was accompanied to the meeting by former Board Of Trustees chairman of the PDP, Tony Anenih; former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim; former deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara; former foreign affairs minister, Ojo Maduekwe; and the director general of his campaign organization, Dalhatu Tafida. Also on the entourage were two former ministers, Jerry Gana and Don Etiebet.
At the meeting, the president was said to have sought the support of the representatives for his campaign to secure the party’s presidential ticket. He was also said to have assured the lawmakers, who are automatic delegates to the convention, that he would work to ensure that at least 30 percent of them return to the National Assembly. Mr Jonathan had, on the previous night, met with the PDP senators at the official residence of the Senate President. The discussion was along the same line.
Loggerheads with the executive
Interestingly, the meeting with the senators came on the day the lawmakers accused the executive of a grand plot to destabilise the legislature.
They pointed to a statement credited to Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi that the national assembly gulps 25 percent of the recurrent vote in the N4.4 trillion federal budget as well as those of the minister of finance, Olusegun Aganga and the Special Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Amina Az-Zubairu, which they claimed created the impression that the legislature is mishandling funds. While debating a motion brought by the senate deputy leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, the senators maintained that there was a deliberate attempt by the executive to put the parliament in bad light before Nigerians. Some senators, notably Heineken Lokpobiri (PDP Bayesla) and Jubril Aminu (PDP, Adamawa) even went as far as accusing that arm of government of “treason.” Consequently, the upper chamber asked the trio to appear before its joint committee on Appropriation, Finance, Banking and MDGs. They did but Mr Sanusi, at the session which was aired live by a national television, but he refused to be browbeaten into admitting that the statement he made at a public lecture at Igbinedion University, Edo State, lacked facts. The CBN boss, who even offered to resign, insisted that his facts were right because he got them from the office of the Director General of the Budget Office. In the House, the debate on motion sponsored by Halims Agoda (PDP, Delta) on the same matter was no less intense. At the end of it, Mr Sanusi alone was asked to appear before the House in plenary, last Thursday. But inquest was put off till this week.
Intimidating Nigerians
The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) said the lawmakers are merely intimidating Nigerians.
“Constituted authorities should be allowed to function without any form of intimidation from any arm of the government,” Dennis Aghanya, the party spokesman said.
“Nigerians should not be intimidated by this incessant summoning by the NASS because they were elected to represent us. The only way they can be effective in the discharge of their functions effectively is through such observations like that of the CBN Governor. If this claim is disturbing to the NASS, they should put to rest all those rumours about their take home pay and publish in details facts concerning their basic salaries and any form of allowance due to members and at what point.” Spokesman of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), Osita Okechukwu, also said Mr Sanusi did not say anything new, adding that instead of hunting down patriots like the CBN Governor, the lawmakers should embark on soul searching.
It is not clear if the hurried decision of the president to initiate a meeting with the PDP members was informed by the statements credited to the CBN governor and his two aides. What is, however, not in doubt is that the parleys with the lawmakers are not far from the 2011 polls. “It is all part of the build up to elections,” an analyst said on Friday.
Recently, the senators threw out a bill sponsored by the president seeking to amend Section 87 (7) of the Electoral Act. The amendment, if approved, would have allowed presidential aides to serve as delegates during the primaries. But the lawmakers disagreed in anger.
Sources said the president and the lawmakers had a mutual understanding to do whatever is possible to allow most of the lawmakers return for the next session. A source in the Senate said this understanding informed the earlier statement credited to the Senate President asking for automatic ticket for the PDP senators to run in the main elections.
They were said to have referred to the situation in 2007, when about 80 percent of the members of the House and about 60 percent of the senators could not make it back to the National Assembly.
It was gathered, however, that Mr Jonathan’s body language did not suggest that he supported that. Besides, some of the lawmakers, who are not in the good books of their governors, fear they might not get the ticket to return or even contest other positions.
Thus, as part of the move to brighten their chances, some of them, particularly those of the PDP, came up with the idea to sponsor a bill that will make them members of the party’s NECs. At present, only the principal officers and two members from each of the six geo-political zones belong to the PDP NEC. This is in contrast with what obtains in the opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), where its lawmakers at the federal level belong to the NEC.
For lawmakers, their membership of the NECs will not only bring them at par with the governors, but also enhances their power base to be able to decide their electoral fortunes.
Mr Jonathan has reportedly recognised this enormous power which the lawmakers seek, hence his overtures to them during the week. If anything, he succeeded as all caucuses pledged their support for him.
Eseme Eyiboh, spokesman of the House of Representatives said there was no ulterior motive behind the activities of the lawmakers, just as he insisted that the meetings with Mr Jonathan and the PDP leadership were in order.
But the Head of Administration and Establishment of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Emma Ugboaja says if the polls are transparent, the lawmakers’ scheme would mean nothing.
“These are clear indications of a power elite that have come to the end of the greedy hold on an over-passive populace,” he said. “The ultimate response of people to the antics of these overpriced court jesters may well lie on how Mr Jega is able to get his acts together and deliver on credible elections.”
SOURCE:234next.com
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