PROFILE: Ekweremadu And The Ides Of NASS

WILL he survive this? Would he not? How would his position affect the leadership crisis in the National Assembly? Could it be that he is being targeted in the plots to dethrone the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki? Those are some of the many questions bogging the minds of Nigerians as they await the resumption of National Assembly.

If the squabbles in the National Assembly should be categorized between the two chambers, the stress would be more in the Red chamber than in the Green, lower House.

This is because while the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Green Chamber, could be said to have passed the basic test of a normal democratic selection, that of the Senate President and his deputy attracted critical commentaries. The controversy has to do with the “technical isolation” of some APC Senators from the election.

Top of that argument is the claim of forgery surrounding the inauguration document of the Senate: the Rule book! For the first time in the history of the National Assembly, especially the Senate; the police are looking into the actions, actors and directors of the Rule book drama.

It is therefore yet to be seen whether the unfolding investigations into the alleged alterations in the Senate Standing Rules would situate the case as the defining scandal of the Eighth Senate or a signpost of the troubled mandate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Despite the fact that it downed the giant Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) at the last general election, APC has not been finding things easy in its bid to provide leadership from the standpoint of forming the federal government. The configuration of the Eighth Senate is not helping the party at all.

Divided unevenly to its advantage, the gap between the 59 Senators it has and the 49 presented by the PDP, it is obvious that APC cannot drive the change it promised without the collaboration of its dethroned rival.

That is where the election of the Senate principal officers turned out a pain in the neck for the ruling party. It has never happened before. Even during the last days of PDP,, the opposition could not muster such strength as to challenge its hegemonic control of the premier positions of the bi-cameral federal legislature.

And sitting atop this mess, is the PDP Senator, Ike Ekweremadu, who retained his seat as Deputy President of Senate. It is a sad pill to swallow. Did the Senate President, Saraki, cross the political red line of the party to reach a pact with the ’enemies’? Though Saraki and the fact of the uneven division of membership roll rule out such a possibility, APC has continued to run around seeking how it could curb the perfidy.

But Senator Ike Ekweremadu stands as a totem pole to remind the ruling party of its acrimonious methods. Ekweremadu had been in the Senate for the past 12 years, it is now that his position in the Senate is attracting much attention and examination in the national conversation.

When the Senate reconvenes all eyes would be on him. And the direction of the eighth plenary would depend, to a very large extent; on outcome of the battle with his traducers.

As a politician, Ekweremadu has always emerged from troubling times and seasons. That in part, is why the current talks as to whether he would survive or be swallowed up in the latest vexatious political circumstances, is getting strident.

When he failed the chairmanship election to Aninri local government in 1998, it was as if his love for politics would not be eventful. This was because prior to that set back, he had earlier shone brilliantly as Council chairman under the Sani Abacha transition during which he was honoured with an award as the best performing Council chairman in Enugu.

But through the chance occurrence of failure to return as Aninri Council chairman, Ekweremadu began his meteoric rise in Nigeria’s politics.

Adopted by then Governor Chimaroke Nnamani from his erstwhile All Peoples Party (APP), to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ekweremadu was appointed the Chief of Staff in the Enugu State Government House. In 2003, following the political palaver in Enugu PDP resulting from the separation between former godfather, Senator Jim Nwobodo and incumbent Governor Nnamani, Ekweremadu found his way to the Senate.

Before then, he had tried to use his promotion to the post of Secretary to the State Government (SSG) at the tail end of the first term of Governor Nnamani to entrench himself in Enugu politics.

But noting his excessive ambition for political ascendance, Governor Nnamani decided that “Ekweremadu would leave Enugu for us; we are sending him to Senate.” In 2007, during the political abracadabra called election, while voters where still on the queue waiting for their turn to vote, the name of Ike Ekweremadu was resonating on the airwaves as having won the Enugu West seat for a second term.

That was about the first time anybody in Enugu State would be enjoying a second term ticket to the Senate. It was on this second journey to the Senate, which started as a political exile that Ekweremadu became the Deputy President of Nigeria Senate.

In 2011, thanks to the Doctrine of Necessity that made the erstwhile Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, mount the saddle as President in 2010; Ekweremadu has matured as one of the great deals makers in Abuja.

Presenting himself as a loyal deputy to Senate President David Mark, Ekweremadu, consolidated his position as a prominent political actor by his election as Speaker of the Economic Community for West African States, (ECOWAS) parliament.

From his votes and committee activities, it was evident that Ekweremadu was adept at playing survivalist politics and pandering to the dictates of powerful forces of the establishment. However, down the line, his desire to return to the Senate for a record fourth time threw up some hiccups.

Governor Sullivan Chime, who incidentally hails from the same Enugu West Senatorial district as the Deputy President of Senate, wanted to retire to the Senate like his fellow second term governors.

Ekweremadu deployed the contacts he made within his long sojourn in Abuja and presence in the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) to checkmate Chime.

When the pressure became too hot, ex-president Jonathan had to intervene, stressing that he needs the Deputy President of Senate back in the Senate so that with Mark, his second term in office would be eventful and fruitful.

Chime was promised a ministerial appointment or even the appointment as Chief of Staff to the President, when victory is won! Having sealed that deal, Ekweremadu got another easy passage to the Senate.

But it was a mixed a blessing. President Jonathan, who expected to win a second term, received a trouncing from the fledgling All Progressives Congress (APC), and its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari.

Not that alone, even though Senator Mark made it back to the Senate, their platform, PDP, could not garner majority members of the Eighth Senate.

How would life in the Senate fare without the pomp and presence conferred by the leadership of the Red Chamber? There must be a way out, Ikeoha, as the former Deputy President of Senate is popularly called by his admirers, must have thought. The monkey business by the ruling APC over the zoning of principal offices in the National Assembly presented that way.

Though Mark and other PDP stalwarts saw reason in leaving the Senate leadership to the party with the majority, the former DSP had his own ideas, believing that with the division in APC, he could try his luck with a gamble for a return to his esteem position of DSP. The decision of APC to divert its members in the Senate to the International Conference Centre provided a perfect setting for Ekweremadu to clinch a third perch on the saddle as DSP. But it came with a heavy price.

During the debates on the appearance of a strange Rule Book, whether out of itchy feet or sheer ecstasy, Ekweremadu tried to rationalise the alteration of the Senate standing rules.

He had, while responding to the question raised by Senator Kabiru Marafa, on the issue on June 10, said that the 2011 Rule Book had “died” with the Seventh Senate.

With that, he put himself on the black spot!  It took a petition from a member of the APC faction loyal to Senator Ahmed Lawan, for the matter to elicit police investigation.     As it turned out, a preliminary report of the investigation into the alleged forgery, hinted at a possible involvement of the Deputy Senate President.

It is expected that if the report establishes a prima facie case, any of the senators implicated could face criminal charges. Even though the issue of the need or otherwise of inviting the DSP for interrogation has been making controversial rounds, the matter has assumed a new dimension with Ekweremadu’s supporters, including the PDP and Ohanaeze Nd’Igbo throwing their weight behind the embattled DSP.

It is left to seen how the present altercation and the fact that he went to usurp a position that could ordinarily be APC’s for the taking, whether Ekweremadu would survive the onslaught.

Could this be a final deal for the scheming Senator from Mpu in Aninri local government of Enugu State? If not for the fact that some of the alterations had to do with manner of election and voting during the selection of the principal officers and the division within the APC, Ekweremadu’s involvement would not have been at issue.

But he is involved because of his position. Some people have actually queried his decision to seek a return to the DSP seat when he is not a member of the ruling party.

Could it be that Ekweremadu is a politician to whom personal interest means more than group service? Was his decision to contest the DSP a collective position of PDP or did he take advantage of APC’s disorganised majority in the Senate? What benefits to PDP does the DSP expect to reap from his position? No matter what or how the matter is finally resolved,, Senator Ike Ekweremadu has made himself a reference point in the disjointed beginning of the Eighth Senate.

Was his political good fortune of snatching victory from APC for good or ill? If You Tambuwal Us, We Ekweremadu You THOUGH former President Jonathan did not return to have Ekweremadu do for him, whatever it was he wanted him back in the Senate, situation and circumstances have carved out a new role for the DSP.

After its initial bewilderment over how to handle the transition to opposition, in Ekweremadu PDP found a fitting reply to the recompense APC for its acts of sabotage and filibustering against it in the last dispensation.

And in no other symbolic way did the APC, through its nucleus Action Congress of Nigeria (AC.N) succeed in demonstrating serious affront to PDP federal government than in the election of former Speaker of House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.

On June 9, 2015, Senator Ekweremadu took advantage of the lack of coordination in the APC to give it back to the party. The election of Ekweremadu was therefore more of a partisan slight than personal political triumph. And this is the defining curve of Ekweremadu’s politics.

He would definitely remain central to the warp and woof of legislative, nay opposition politics of the PDP. And to remember that Senator Ekweremadu is also chairman of the PDP Review Committee brings up the question of whether the Senator would double as the new arrowhead of his party.

No doubt he has risen to become part of the issues of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic politics. When therefore the Senate reconvenes on July 28, 2015 Nigerians would be excited to know what the Ides of NASS portend for the PDP Deputy President of Senate, the cat with nine lives!