How NASS/APC crisis may shape 2019 presidency

By Ezugwu Obinna

New facts are emerging to the effect that the current leadership crisis  rocking the 8th National Assembly and by extension the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) is not unconnected with the bid by certain powerful individuals in the North to retain power in 2019 following the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari not to seek re-election.

There had been, it would be recalled, speculations in many quarters in the lead up to the recently concluded 2015 general election that Buhari had reached an agreement with the Bola Ahmed Tinubu led faction of the APC to cede power to the Southwest after completing one term in 2019. This had prompted political figures from the region like the former Niger State governor, Babangida Aliyu to suggest that such arrangement was unfair to the North.

“Buhari promised to do one term, the implication of that is that it would be short-changing of the rotational presidency when it comes to the turn of the North. Even as a young man, Buhari was not a good administrator, he allowed his subordinates to steal the show,” Aliyu had noted at a PDP governor’s forum in Lagos.

With Buhari’s victory, Hallmark learnt, it became expedient on the Northern political bloc supposedly led by former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to curtail the influence of Tinubu who was the major player in the APC with a view to taking over the party structure before the next general election. The fear is that if Tinubu’s influence is not contained, he might still be able to call the shots in 2019, and one sure way of avoiding such scenario was to relegate him to the background in the new administration.

A source had revealed to Hallmark that the emergence of Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as senate president and speaker of the House of Reps respectively was an underground plot by some powerful individuals in the North to make sure that Tinubu’s loyalists do not head the legislature. The end result of which is to put him out of the picture against 2019.

Speaking to journalists in Kaduna recently, Senator Shehu Sani, the senator representing Kaduna Central reportedly revealed that the current leadership crisis rocking the National Assembly is connected with the presidential aspirations of some powerful individuals in the country.  The Senator However assured that plans were being made to resolve the crisis.

“APC will soon reconcile its members, the PDP cannot come in and reap the any gains,” Sani said while also acknowledging the role of former president Olusengun Obasanjo in reconciling the Saraki and Ahmed Lawan factions in the senate.

Although Sani expressed optimism in the ability of the party to reconcile differences, unfolding events suggests that the party might be heading for even deeper crisis, again for reasons not unconnected with 2019.

While the leadership of the APC, including some its governors had met and took a position on who to give what in the remaining principal offices in the senate and had accordingly sent a letter to Senator Saraki to that effect, the senate president refused to read the letter on the floor on Wednesday.

The Saraki led faction known as the Like Minds had in a meeting scheduled by the party’s senators with a view to settling ensuing crisis and forge a united front, rejected the position of the Lawan group, the Unity Forum on the sharing formula of offices. While the Unity forum had insisted that the party’s position which was to use the position of majority leader and deputy majority leader to compensate Lawan and Senator George Akume respectively over their failure to clinch the senate president and deputy senate president positions.

A letter reportedly sent by Oyegun in the course of the meeting shared the remaining principal offices thus: Senate Majority Leader -North East, Senator Ahmad Lawan; Deputy Majority Leader-North Central, Senator George Akume; Senate Chief Whip- South West, Senator Olusola Adeyeye and Deputy Chief Whip- North West, Senator Abu Ibrahim.

But the Like Minds insisted on zoning offices among geopolitical zones as opposed to the party’s position, a development that led to fracas at the meeting.

During the Wednesday’s plenary, one of the senators under the Unity Forum, Gbenga Ashafa raised a point of order to the effect that the APC leadership had sent a letter specifying how the remaining eight principal offices would be shared, but he was consequently ruled out of order by the Senate President who declined reading the letter.

The senate would later in what could be rightly described as unanimous opposition to the APC leadership, endorse Senator Ali Ndume from Borno South, North East as Majority Leader. At the meeting of the 13 North East senators on Wednesday, 11 voted for Ndume while only two senators voted for Lawan.

The post of deputy majority leader went to the North West, the North Central where Akume is from having rejected the position based on the fact that the zone has already produced senate president. The North West senators also met on Wednesday and endorsed Senator Senator Ahmed Sani-Rufia from Zamfara West but he declined the position and recommended Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allalah from Kebbi South who eventually emerged.

The only APC endorsed senator who was able to get his position is Senator Olusola Adeyeye who was endorsed by the South West caucus for the post of Chief Whip, the zone’s senators had understandably met with Tinubu and with whom they had reached a consensus on Adeyeye. Meanwhile, the need to have somebody from the South-South Zone as one of the principal officers led to the emergence of Senator Francis Alimikhena from Edo North as Deputy Whip.

Similar scenario is also playing in the House of Reps where Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila from Lagos whom the party had chosen as House majority Leader has understandably been rejected by members who insist that giving him the position would amount to concentrating too much legislative powers in the South West, Hon. Yusuf Lasun from Osun having been elected Deputy Speaker.

Reports had emerged that both the North East and North West members of the House who had supported him during his quest for speaker have now turned their backs on him.

A development that has been interpreted in some quarters as calculated moves to curtail the influence of the South West and by implication, Tinubu going forward.

The whole idea, according to a source who fingered Atiku, is to make sure that unlike this year 2015, the South West would not be in a position to make significant input on who succeeds Buhari in 2019 should he keep his words and steps aside.

It had also emerged that the PDP was being considered as a viable alternative for the North in case things do not work as planned in the APC. This, Hallmark understands is the reason behind the growing affinity between the Saraki group and the PDP members in the senate.