PDP and 9th National Assembly leadership

Although the All Progressives Congress (APC) controls a reasonably comfortable majority in both houses of the 9th National Assembly, the numerically disadvantaged opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) actually poses a more potent threat in terms of determining the outcome of legislative elections to determine the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives. This was demonstrated during the process of electing the leadership of the 8th Assembly when the PDP outsmarted the APC and ensured the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki and Honourable Yakubu Dogara, Senate President and House of Representatives Speaker, respectively, thus thwarting the preferences of the majority party. Even though the APC leadership is obviously determined to avoid a repeat of such a scenario this time around, it is still difficult to offhandedly dismiss the possibility of the PDP pulling off a surprise.

True, rank indiscipline within political parties in this dispensation is not limited to any party but the APC is far more culpable in this regard, which makes it more vulnerable to being outsmarted in elections to pick the leaders of the legislature. Despite the APC leadership having made its choice of legislators to fill the various leadership positions known, for instance, other interested members of the party are going ahead with their campaigns to contest the elections on the floor of both chambers. Thus, if the APC splits its votes in the contest among multiple aspirants from its ranks, a minority PDP voting as a bloc may determine the outcome of the contest.

The PDP is obviously a more cohesive political party in contrast to the APC. Indeed, it is the cohesion and relatively stronger organizational resilience of the PDP that made it possible for the party to hold the reins of power for 16 years since 1999 before its catastrophic defeat at the centre in the historic 2015 elections. Had the PDP been as fractious and crisis prone in the first 12 of its 16 years in power as the APC has been in just four years in control at the centre, the consequences could surely have been unsavory for Nigeria’s democratic evolution.

For, an unstable ruling party unable to keep unavoidable intra-organizational disputes within reasonable bounds could have been a grave danger to the political system within the context of fragmented and fragile opposition political parties incapable for the better of the last 20 years of organizing to compete effectively for power. Formed essentially to conserve and stabilize Nigeria’s unjust, unequal and dysfunctional status quo in the post-military era and backed heavily by the retreating military high command in 1999, which had skewed the handover process in its favour, the PDP was primarily concerned with controlling and maintaining its grip on power rather than utilizing it for any ennobling end. It succeeded handsomely in this regard until increasing organizational sclerosis compounded by the sheer venality of the President Goodluck Jonathan years, which had disastrous consequences for the economy and the existential conditions of millions of Nigerians, resulted in its 2015 electoral implosion.

On its part, the APC was hurriedly cobbled together as an election winning coalition barely a year to the 2015 elections. Furthermore, its key coalition partners are disparate and barely compatible ideologically. While the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) strand has a strongly federalist and welfarist disposition, which presupposes far-reaching adjustments in major spheres of the country’s extant structure, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) tendency firmly believes in maintaining the current structural status quo believing only in enforcing greater asceticism, fiscal prudence and discipline in the country’s moral life. On its part, the nPDP’s presence in the APC coalition was driven only by a desire to kick the Goodluck Jonathan administration out of power rather than any pretentious philosophical concerns.

When the nPDP saw itself marginalized in the distribution of key positions in the APC administration in the aftermath of the 2015 APC victory, it quickly moved to hijack the leadership of the National Assembly and successfully did so with the support of its old allies in the PDP. Of course, the nPDP shortly found itself back in the PDP but even then the remaining coalition partners in the APC did not see this exit of perceived strange ideological bedfellows from its ranks as an opportunity to forge a more disciplined, harmonious and focused party. Various tendencies, fractions and individuals within the ruling party continued to strive hard to marginalize and neutralize one another politically. With the approach of the 2019 elections, most party members and leaders closed ranks once again and worked together to achieve victory at the polls.

Hardly were the polls over than party members began to aim for each other’s jugular. Brick bats are exchanged constantly in the media. Some elements in the APC are already fixated with the 2023 presidential elections even as the party is just about commencing its promise to take the country to the Next Level. Deadly infighting has begun in the party as individuals and tendencies intrigue to outmaneuver and vanquish each other before 2023. It is against this background that the June 11 inauguration of the 9th Assembly will hold and leaders of the legislature elected. Shunning the APC’s position, Senator Ali Ndume is pursuing his Senate Presidency ambition aggressively while Senator Danjuma Goje seems to be adopting a more subtle approach.

In the House of Representatives, Honourable Umaru Bago Mohammed is the leading contender against Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila for the Speakership even though the party leadership has backed the latter. If enough APC party ‘dissidents’ refuse to toe the party line and split their votes  on the floor of the two chambers and the PDP vote as a bloc, the opposition will surely, once again, play a fast one on the APC as regards the emergent 9th leadership.

From the Machiavellian perspective on politics, the PDP should indeed pursue and indeed relish the possibility of outmaneuvering the APC and preventing candidates of the majority party’s choice from emerging as leaders of the legislature on June 11. After all, does the end not just the means? And did the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) not also strategically align with a colluding faction of the majority PDP to ensure the emergence of a Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives that was not the choice of the PDP leadership in 2011? But that is precisely the point. Today the ACN is a key partner in the APC that is suffering the discomfiture of being at the mercy of a minority party that has sufficient number of members to prevent the emergence of legislative leaders of the majority party’s choice once significant numbers of the majority party defy their party.

The PDP can take a higher path and respect the right of the majority party to determine the leadership of each House. That way it would demonstrate its confidence that there is every possibility of its becoming the majority party once again in the near future especially given its remarkable resurgence in the last election. And should it one day command the majority in the National Assembly again, the PDP would have laid a morally impregnable precedent that a future minority party will breach to widespread opprobrium.

In any case, the strained relationship between the legislative leadership of the 8th Assembly who belonged to the minority party and the presidency cost the country so much in terms of policy paralysis and a replication of the same situation this time around could have even more severe consequences. But then, this does not mean that a legislative leadership from the majority party should then make the law making arm of government subservient to the executive. That would ultimately have negative implications both for democracy and development.

A key deciding factor of how the legislative leadership election of June 11 will go will be the House Rules to be used for the exercise. Both the PDP members and dissenting APC members who intend to defy their party will prefer the 2015 rules, which were adopted in controversial circumstances, and provides for secret ballot mode of voting. Those APC members who are toeing the party line will want rules that make for open ballot.

Should a legislator elected on the platform of a party seek to vote in secret if he has nothing to hide from the platform through which he became a legislator? Should the rules of a preceding legislative assembly be binding on its successors? Can newly elected legislators amend the House Rules that will determine the process through which the legislative leaders will be elected before they are sworn in? It will surely be a battle of wits as these issues are decided on June 11.

Of course, the PDP also has its own challenges as regards its choice of minority leader in the Senate. By far the most ranking, qualified and deserving candidate for the position is Senator Ike Ekweramadu, the current Deputy Senate President. But Senators Dino Melaye and Ayo Akinyelure are said to be interested in contesting. This is improper.