The thickening plot within the APC at the National Assembly is drifting too dangerously irresponsible.
By now, the traitors in the hallowed chambers should be warming up for the jugular of Mr President, having established a relative control over the house. No clairvoyant could see it clearer.
Although their routing of the National Assembly is not completely over, anyone who has been watching the political panorama since it began on June 9 would be in no doubt as to where the pendulum is swinging, unless the APC moves in its armoured personnel carrier to crush the rebellion with pinpointed accuracy and political sagacity.
The conspiracy started even outside the assembly, with the suspicion woven around some national leaders of the party, perceived too strong, wealthy and power-thirsty enough to hijack the party if they were not checkmated or blackmailed.
The plot then ascended to usurping the supremacy of the party by some traitors at the Assembly. The next stage now will automatically be the derobing of the President.
Things began falling out of shape when Bola Ahmed Tinubu, national leader of the party, was being rumoured to be scheming for the total control of the party which he intended to turn into his fiefdom once victory had been assured, and to the alleged discomfort of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, whose life-long ambition is to become Nigeria’s president, at any cost.
Bola Ahmed’s ACN, in spite of his claimed stupendous wealth, was no match for the PDP, neither was Alhaji Atiku Abukakar, the PDP/AC/ACN/PDP/APC man.
Retired General Muhammadu Buhari, a man of character, could not deploy his integrity alone to subdue PDP on the three occasions he had tried.
All these men, and the other heavyweights in APC, collectively put their resources together to conquer the then ruling party.
The amalgamation did not dethrone PDP, it only provided a platform. What forced out the then ruling party after 16 years of misrule and mismanagement was the people’s will and determination.
The current plot and the hatchery and the hijacking are being directed at the masses who are watching with keen interest.
Tinubu was said to have included his list of legislators for appointment into principal offices at the National Assembly, What, if one may pose the question, is wrong with such disposition? Would the list have been compiled by non-interest groups who were wining and dining in the country while Asiwaju was spending his resources for their party’s victory? Could he have surrendered the assignment to PDP?
In a true democracy which has been the hallmark of the APC since its evolution, such decision would be subjected to scrutiny, devoid of acrimony, rancour and treachery, at the party level, then at the National Assembly, to ensure equal representations in power sharing and all-inclusiveness.
And let no one be deceived. It was a dirty connivance between Dr Abubakar Saraki ‘s group and PDP, no matter the belated defence put up by Saraki. If he aligned with his party’s arch-rival to emerge as Senate President because he thought he was the best who could have been abducted, as he claimed, was he also almost kidnapped before refusing to read his National Chairman’s letter on the appointments of other principal officers for the Senate? Was he in a trance to have announced the appointments from his own list?
Was he almost kidnapped to have ignored the governors’ advice following a meeting he had with them, and why hiding behind the Constitution which does not categorically say that party supremacy should be jettisoned in the conduct of legislative affairs?
Saraki and Atiku are best of friends momentarily because of their similar morbid ambition and desperation to rule this country. They are like a tag-team in a wrestling contest, ganging up to knock out opponents before facing each other. Time, however, will tell.
Politics is not all about wits, opportunities and daring strategic moves, but about character, level-headedness, decorum, humility and decency, otherwise its players will be consumed in the ensuing raging fire.
Now that the hallowed chamber has been violated, the governors and the party consigned to the backstage, Saraki’s course can be directed at the Presidency, now or later.
With the PDP’s back-entry into the hall of infamy, in conjunction with dissenters or deserters, the hatchet men can now take position.
The President needs the unflinching cooperation and undivided loyalty of the National Assembly for an effective administration of the country.
He needs distilled laws to fight corruption and to revamp the economy which is aground by the misrule of PDP. The assembly will have to give its consent to the bills to fight insurgency.
How will the assembly treat appointments of ministers and other technocrats and bureaucrats, crucial decisions from the executive needing urgent legislative approval, as well as other matters arising, amidst saboteurs?
How will executive appointments be shared, bearing in mind that under the presidential system of governance, the winner takes all, a policy tenaciously stuck to by PDP in its 16 years is misrule?
As it stands now, the position of deputy senate presidency, a product of the PDP contrivance, is a child borne out of ”the Osu caste system,” or at best a contraband (waiting to be impounded anyway.) Of course, under the APC, appointments are to benefit all the geo-political zones according to their input to the victory of the party.
As the saying goes, morning shows the day and with the selective perception of the National Assembly, its vision will be blurred, with the presidency being forced to go down on its kneels for the senators to perform their constitutional and legislative functions.
The greatest beneficiary of the APC’s house of commotion is the PDP which, in its closet, is gloating and praying for a deeper crisis and an elongation of the disorder within APC.
The personal interests of plotters far outweigh masses’ interests, although pretentious smiles will manifest on their faces for now, in addition to sponsorship of weightless motions. The real and ultimate intention will be to sabotage the Buhari administration for a re-emergence of PDP.
Already, the conspiracy has breathed some oxygen needed desperately into the dying PDP, but since the leopard cannot change its spot, the next move is to hurl spanners in the wheel of progress and sabotage the presidency with the willing hands in APC.
Although Nigerians have come of age politically, Buhari’s popular slogan of being for nobody should be reviewed, after all, he was and still an APC man before becoming the president of all.
He should intervene legally, constitutionally and morally to stop the conspirators, because issues at the Senate are not likely to be discussed on merit, but across party lines.
Disagreements are healthy developments in democracy, but they must be devoid of backstabbing, treachery, conspiracy and dictatorial tendencies, more so with the precarious positioning of the senate presidency.
According to the great German poet, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, anyone to whom a matter is of great importance must take sides, otherwise, he does not deserve to act anywhere.
Adele is a Public Affairs Analyst
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