The Plot To Unseat Sen. Ike Ekweremadu

*Ekweremadu

By Dan Amor
We must get the record straight. As Senator Ken Nnamani, the last President of the Fifth Senate and one of the finest legislative minds in the country has asserted, the floor of any chamber of the Nigerian bi-camera legislature is not a party secretariat. So, those calling for the resignation of Senator Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President are enemies of our democracy.

President Muhammadu Buhari was recently quoted as saying that the emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as Deputy Senate President was unacceptable to him and his party, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). "I cannot work with enemies of my party— Buhari,” so goes the headline, whatever that means. This position of the President was followed by the alleged invitation of Ekweremadu by the police to be quizzed over the alleged doctoring of the Senate Rules to facilitate his election as Deputy Senate President. It is like the fable of the owl crying in the night and the child dying the following morning.

The reported invasion of the hallowed chamber of the Senate by the police ostensibly to question the Clerk is outrageous, to say the least and must be condemned by all Nigerians who fought the military to a standstill to bring about the current democratic dispensation in 1999.

Therefore, the statement by the Presidency denying its involvement in the matter is laughable. Yet, without much ado, it must be emphasized that those who want to remove by hook or by crook, Ike Ekweremadu who was duly elected by Nigerian Senators as Deputy President of the Eight Senate in a keenly contested election on the floor of the Red Chamber and was sworn-in in accordance with the Rules of the Senate as sanctioned by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, do not wish this democracy well.

*Buhari

The PDP, despite its numerous shortcomings, still managed to hold the entire country and the democratic experiment together for sixteen unbroken years and handed over power to the APC in peace on May 29, 2015. The APC, rather than manifest the time tested ethos of democracy and progressive ideology which they claimed they had, are trying to bring back the hand of the clock. A true progressive should radiate the equanimity to accept defeat and the magnanimity to share his victory. Anything short of this is retrogressive.

The assumption that Ekweremadu should step down as Deputy Senate President because he is of a minority party, is hopelessly bogus and out of tune with democratic best practices across the world. There is nowhere in our Constitution or even in the Electoral Act that states that the winning party must produce all the principal officers of the National Assembly. There is even no specific designation which must be occupied by the ruling party in the National Assembly. The Senate has its own Rules not within the contemplation of any political affiliations. It is this that has bestowed its occupants with the appellation of "Distinguished Senators of the Federal Republic", not of any political party, tribe or religion. In fact, it is only natural that the majority party (the party in power) should produce the Senate President. This enviable position the APC has already assumed in the person of Distinguished Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki. If our Senators, in their wisdom had decided to vote in their colleague from a minority party to the position of Deputy Senate President due to his competence and experience, so be it.

Indeed, it was just because of our mundane political practice in which the winner takes all, that the PDP in the past had to occupy both the positions of Senate President and Deputy Senate President. If APC as the ruling party, is prepared to work for Nigeria in the interest of the people, does it need to occupy all the principal offices at the National Assembly before it can effectively deliver on its campaign promises? Again, if the APC is truly progressive, isn't it to its credit that for the first time in our democratic sojourn a minority party became Deputy Senate President when it was in power?

For so long, Nigerians have had to contend with so many obscenities from their leaders who try to import every conceivable political or economic experiment on the face value without trying to imbibe the spirit behind the idea. If our politicians assume the courage to practise in letter and in spirit the rules of engagement in presidential democracy as it is done in the United States of America from where we copied our executive presidential system, all the charades and shenanigans we are witnessing would not rear their ugly heads in our system of governance.

*Saraki

In his seminal, "PROFILES IN COURAGE ", John F. Kennedy, himself, a Junior Senator of the United States of America espouses eight vignettes of eight United States senators, who sat in the United States Senate, and by their various actions at crucial moments in American political history displayed courage. They displayed the strength to resist political pressure, and to take a lonely stand on their own sense of what was right for their beloved country. The eight profiles are bracketed by a first chapter, "Courage and Politics," and a last chapter, "The Meaning of Courage." Kennedy was obviously exploring his own sense of what it meant to occupy that high office. Beyond the fact that Kennedy's eight heroes were all senators of the United States, no region or party or moment in time includes them. They come not only from different parties in their national history, but from the North and the South, the East and the West. But whatever their party and whatever their section of the country, each of Kennedy's eight senators at a crucial moment chooses an unpopular course and acts in the light of what he conceives to be the higher interest of the nation as a whole; against party, against section, even against the will of his constituents.

As a nation, we must appreciate the need for a thoroughly considered approach to change, a perspective that sets the attractions of potential benefits against the backdrop of potential harm that this sentiment-induced patriotism can cause to the polity. Admittedly, there are tendencies that are basic to all political unions. This is because all units within the federation, respectively, have certain local interests and values which they hold dear to themselves and for which they will not tolerate any infraction.

What makes Nigeria's case different is the seeming stubbornness on the part of those who continue to run the affairs of the nation as though Nigeria is their private estate. It is this failure of those who are entrusted with the national responsibility of husbanding a truly co-operative federalism that has led to the prevailing perception that some are wittingly or unwittingly using the federal arrangement to unfairly lord it over others. Of course, as a community of people with differing interests, backgrounds, world views and idiosyncrasies, it is natural that Nigerians should see national issues from varied and at times contradicting perspectives. These are the necessary fallouts of a gregarious reality. But this reality should rather unite us instead of the contrary.

Whereas some members of the ruling party who still uphold the mundane politics of "winner takes all" see the emergence of Ekweremadu as an exception to the "rule", the decision of our senators to have him retain his position was to further the national good, not his own good. That decision was not to further the good of his region, not the good of his party, not even the good of his fellow senators. Our politicians must learn to place the collective good of Nigeria before any other interest. The verbal attacks and intimidation on his person by certain faithful of the ruling party are unnecessary and provocative. For most discerning Nigerians, to argue that the nation is once more transiting to democracy with politicians that lack democratic temperament, is to understate the matter. Also, to many dispassionate observers, APC leaders, in denouncing Ekweremadu's emergence while urging Saraki to continue are displaying their poverty of commitment to democratic ideals and lack of intellectual honesty. It is convincingly clear that no patriotic Nigerian can contest that in all things, national interest or our collective destiny should superimpose individual, group or party consideration.

*Tinubu

In a piece titled "OBJ On Loyalty: Between Party Position And National Interest" (SUNDAY INDEPENDENT MAY 13, 2007), Mike Ikhariale, an erudite Professor of Constitutional Law states: "Once a lawmaker takes his or her oath of office, he or she ceases to be a party tool in parliament. Instead, he or she is transformed into an agent of national purpose and a neutral defender of the national constitution." At a time of grave national unease such as this, our politics must be banished from its base and amoral platform, and seen as a game that should create 'summum bonum' for the citizenry to leave an enviable legacy for future generations. It is here that the Eight Senate has earned the admiration of many well-meaning Nigerians.

The point is that the election of Senator Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President, even if to some people it had less than edifying motives, would pass the test of scientific and legal validity anytime, anywhere. If this is a democratic government, as it is presumed, not an elected autocracy, the executive must respect and observe the doctrine of Separation of Powers and allow the legislature sort out itself with all sense of responsibility and decorum. This is not just about Ekweremadu, but a matter in which the Nigerian people have a stake.

Amor wrote in from Abuja vide danamor98@gmail.com