SENATE: Fending Off Hostilities, Redefining Its Independence

Although the return to plenary by Nigeria’s Senate from its six weeks-old recess did not witness the speculated upset, it was not totally devoid of high drama. Coming barely a week after the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) began the trial of the President of Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, most Nigerians expected a riotous and contentious plenary session. However, when Senator Saraki took his seat as presiding officer, his opening remarks touched on the distraction and lethargy that have attended the eighth Senate. Sounding much like a State-Of-The-Nation address, the President of Senate’s speech harped on the challenges, expectations from Nigerians and place of the Senate in the present dispensation. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Let’s start our work!” By ending his long speech with those words, Senator Saraki seemed to be urging his colleagues to take a break from politics and focus on the assignment cum challenges before them. Veiled in that final sentence also, was a warning by the embattled helmsman to ‘powerful individuals outside this Chambers’ to desist from further distracting the senior legislators.

Having welcomed the Senators back to the business of lawmaking, the vote of confidence on his leadership was the highpoint of the day’s proceedings. Out of the 108 Senators that featured on the Roll of the Eighth Senate, 84 reaffirmed their endorsement of the former Governor of Kwara State as President of Senate. The tally of the vote of confidence was rich, both in substance, politics and arithmetic. And coming as a result of the Senate President’s travails at the CCT, it leaves the impression on the minds of Nigerians that 24 Senators seem to be the tools in the hands of those powerful individuals outside the Red Chamber that seem set to endanger the life of the Eighth Senate. Despite the histrionics and protestations of Senator from Zamfara, Kabiru Marafa, to paint a contrary picture, the vote of confidence on Saraki’s leadership sent a lot of signals about how the plenary could go in the days leading to October 22, 23 and 24, when the CCT resumes its own sitting on the alleged false assets declaration trial.

With the vote of confidence emerged indications that the presidency of Dr. Saraki, either as a result of or despite current huddles arrayed against him, is actually influencing both the Senate and politics of northern Nigeria. From the pattern of voting, it could be seen that the Senate President enjoys support from the various geopolitical zone. There is spread in the endorsement. Interestingly, the vote was moved by Senator David Umaru (APC, Niger East) and from the same North Central geopolitical zone as Saraki.

Standing on Orders 42 and 52 of the Senate Standing Rules, Umaru, after coming by way of point of order; put the matter into current perspective. He noted what he described as “unwarranted embarrassment” targeted at the Senate leadership, declaring that consequently, the Senate “would not succumb to cheap blackmail.” A relevant perspective to the vote of confidence, the second within a space of two months; is that the senators seem to have adverted their minds to the deleterious effect of kowtowing to entrenched political forces and decided to forge a bond of unity around Saraki. Furthermore, the senators may have looked back on the history of the Senate, where a little loss of focus led to a crisis of confidence down to a quick turnover of Senate Presidents.

Senator Umaru reflected this thinking in his preambles before the matter was put to vote. He reflected on the provisions of the 1999 Constitution, stressing how it “guarantees the separation of powers and the independence of the legislative arm of government.” While noting that the legislative arm of Government remains the mainstay of democratic governance, liberty, freedom, fair hearing, checks and balances and above all the protection of human rights of the citizenry; the senator expressed shock at “the attempt and continued interference in the internal affairs of the Senate by detractors and media propaganda against senators, the Senate and its leadership by selfish politicians.”

The fact that the motion was seconded by a former governor from Zamfara, Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima (APC) brings up another aspect of what seems to be playing out in the red Chambers, as it concerns northern politics. Also instructive is the distribution of the votes among the two major political parties -the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC)- defines what has come to be the deep-seated animosity by powerful individuals against the Senate President. While PDP showed its united support by donating a bloc vote of its 48; 35 APC Senators defused suggestions that Saraki’s emergence as Senate President offended the party’s standard. The reverse would have been the case if 35 out of the 59 APC Senators did not join in endorsing the confidence vote.

Looked at from another perspective therefore, the vote of confidence on the Senate President could be seen as a referendum on the June 9 election of floor functionaries in the Red Chamber! Consequently, the protestations of Senator Kabiru Marafa (APC Zamfara Central) against the motion represent the frustrations of minority members who have not recovered from the June 9 effect. Two APC Senators were later to withdraw their endorsements, but that may amount to political after-thought, because the message had been writ large. As such without knowing it, Senator Marafa raised the politics of the opposition of Saraki’s occupancy of the seat of Senate President despite his plaint that; “I came under Point of Order before the Senate took the decision, but you refused me.” For even if section 53(5) of the Standing Order stipulated that “reference shall not be made to any matter which a judicial decision is pending, in such a way as might in the opinion of the President of the Senate prejudice the interest of parties thereto,” the Senate believes that the CCT trial was a prejudicial affront to its corporate image and integrity. Again, Senator Marafa tended to forget that the Senate president whose opinion he wanted to isolate from the matter was already a party to it. Hence, the Senate President deployed his knowledge of the game by inviting the interloper to read Order 53 (6) so he could perhaps understand that “it shall be out of order to attempt to reconsider any specific question upon which the Senate has come to a conclusion during the current session except upon a substantive motion for rescission.”

It may as well be that the Senate President was alluding to such likely politically motivated dissensions as demonstrated by Senator Marafa, when he observed in his address: “We are here to proffer policy solutions and minimize hardship amongst our people. Any other objective must be secondary. The externalized distractions we have had recently have been unhelpful but I am more than ever focused and resolute to the course of our people to provide them leadership that will ease their pain and realize their dreams…”

What those fighting against the SP fail to reflect is that geography, political situation and circumstances seem to have placed Senator Saraki at a unique position for role-play as President in the Eighth Senate. Coming from the Yoruba region of Kwara State in the North Central geopolitical zone, Dr. Saraki bears the cross or crown of his state of origin in Nigeria’s region-sensitive politics. In 2011, while considering the possibility of fielding a consensus northern candidate to slug it out with President Goodluck Jonathan for the PDP presidential ticket, the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), were not convinced that a possible Abubakar Saraki presidency could assuage the yearning for a northern president then. It was partly because he was not chosen as the consensus northern presidential candidate that Saraki contested and won a seat in the senate on PDP platform. And becoming a ranking Senator in 2015 qualified the Kwara State politician to contest the Senate Presidency. He was returned unopposed in magical circumstances as those who would have challenged him went for rehearsals elsewhere.

However, attempts have continued to be made to displace the former governor from that exalted office in the Senate. It happens that numbering in the majority of those seeking his downfall, are from the South West. These powerful individuals, especially, those outside the Red Chambers, seem not to be convinced that a Bukola Saraki Senate presidency would bear political fruits to Yoruba in the present dispensation. Oddly enough, Saraki was among those who defected from the then ruling party to the inchoate APC to strengthen the platform. It could be this curious admixture that some northern senators discovered to lend their support to the Senate President. So, being rejected at various points by the North and South West and the PDP he once rejected, Saraki has become a sort of cornerstone for North and PDP!

A senator from Northwest confided in The Guardian, the day after the vote of confidence on Saraki, that when the possibility of a Muslim joint presidential ticket failed to fly in APC, a certain politician from Southwest was expected to contest the senate seat for a possible emergence as senate president, but that the man chose to remain as a godfather instead of coming to the Senate to be “chief servant”.

The Senator disclosed that it was based on their thinking that some people may after all be trying to become the power behind the throne for Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency that they decided to throw their weight behind the Senate President.