Second Republic lawmaker, Junaid Mohammed, argues in this interview with Acting News Editor, ISHAYA IBRAHIM, that the APC should expel Senate President Bukola Saraki and House of Representatives Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, on account of their role in attaining their offices.
Given the circumstances leading to the election of Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as House of Representatives Speaker, don’t you think the All Progressives Congress (APC) was just being meddlesome in dictating to its members who will be their leaders, since the House rule says members should elect from among themselves their presiding officers?
First and foremost, my understanding of the so-called rules of the House is different from yours. Don’t forget that I was a member of the National Assembly too and I was a leader in the National Assembly. I was a Minority Leader. My understanding is that a political party is an organisation of people who voluntarily come together because they want to aggregate and articulate certain interests. And they also voluntarily adopt upon themselves certain rules and regulations to guide their conduct as members of the party. Oddly, even among armed robbers, there is what you call a code of conduct. And without leadership, without respect, without trust, there can never be any organisation, whether it is a political party, a gang of armed robbers, a government or even an army.
As far as I am concerned, once you join a political party, and you know the party has a constitution, it has rules, and there are certain written and unwritten conducts of the party, then you are bound by the rules of that party. That is number one. Number two, it is all well to say yes, the National Assembly is a kind of semi-autonomous body; that is it is semi-independent part of the government – it is one arm of the government. But if every arm of the government is to behave as if it is a law unto itself; as if the other arm doesn’t matter; as if the destiny and the fate of this country don’t matter, then there is no need having a government.
Nigerians know the difference between APC, PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) and the other parties. And they made a choice, an informed choice, to elect the APC. Any attempt, after electing the APC, to ignore the consequence of the election will portend disaster for Nigeria. Every country on earth that practises democracy has rules, parties and in-house rules. To pretend that because the rules say the two chambers can elect their own leaders means that they are above the law or that they are above the party, that would mean that we might as well stop having parties, because it is the political parties that put forward each and every senator, each and every member of the House to contest election.
For now, we have no provision for independent candidate. If a party puts you there and you win election on the platform of the party, it stands to reason that, you owe the party something and you owe the people who voted you something. And to pretend that because you are now a member, or you are now a governor or you are this or that, you are now a law unto yourself, you are above the law, nobody can sanction you, is an open invitation to anarchy.
As a founding member of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) in the Second Republic, we decided that two of our governors and majority of our senators and members of our House of Representatives who were not prepared to follow the rules of the party, would have to go, and they went. We dismissed (Abubakar) Rimi from the party, we expelled Balarabe Musa (former Kaduna governor) from the party, we expelled almost all the principal officers of the PRP at the National Assembly and the Houses of Assembly. And it is on record, in case you have forgotten, or you didn’t know or you are too young to remember, that in the subsequent election in 1983, we did that (expelling errant members) after the 1979 election due to their indiscipline. In 1983 every one of those we expelled failed to come back to the National Assembly and Houses of Assembly in Kano and Kaduna; in fact, Kaduna, Katsina and Jigawa. Every one of them lost his seat. That is to prove to you that a political party is an important and serious business; that the political party is also something not to play with. It’s not something that is a badge of convenience – when you like, you are a member of the party, when you don’t like, you go and do some sabotage against the party.
I fully subscribe to the idea that these people who ignored the provisions of the party, who have dishonoured the party, dishonoured the electorate, and dishonoured the platform which put them in the Senate and House of Representatives should be sacked immediately. The sooner it’s done, the better.
But don’t you think what happened to the PDP could befall the APC when Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto governor), then in the PDP became Speaker against his party’s choice, and its failure to recognise him led to series of defections in the House of Representatives, and eventually weakening it in the last election?
The situations are not similar. Don’t confuse yourself. What happened in the PDP with Tambuwal was that former President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP decided ab initio that these were the people that were going to contest the election, whether the parties in the Senate and in the House liked it or not. They rebelled. But you should remember that before APC put up anybody for election, there was a primary. And the primary was among members and senators of the party. APC did not impose anybody. People who were free to contest, contested. And the man who emerged as the party’s candidate for the Senate leadership was Ahmed Lawan. I had never heard of his name, until then. He was the one who won the primary. And the man who came second was Senator George Akume from Benue. I knew him when he was a Special Assistant to my friend, Iyorchia Ayu.
In the case of the House of Representatives, there was also a primary. But the primary in the House of Representatives was close. But again, the primary in the House of Representatives for APC members was badly affected by the desire and the corruption of Bukola Saraki, David Mark and other people. Which means after some of the APC senators had refused to abide by the result of the primary, why should we abide by it? Then, money, of course, took over.
So, as far as I am concerned, it is within the right of the APC to deal with those people. If it means going to court, if it means the party being split, so be it. This is not the first time we have a party being split. But mark you, founding fathers of the Second Republic, who are the fathers of the presidential system of Nigeria, foresaw the tendency of Nigerian politicians to be irresponsible. They decided that whatever happens, the president would remain the president. And in any case, the executive branch is in solid and capable hands and it is freely elected. If it were in the parliamentary system, we will now be talking about a different matter – whether there would be a government or there would be no government. In addition, in the situation we found ourselves, there is an in-built guarantee; there is an in-built safety valve.
Even if the entire two chambers go into crisis, fundamentally APC is the majority party in the Senate and in the House. Which means that the second branch of government is also in APC hands, in addition to the executive. There is nothing PDP can do to undermine the presidential system. I am aware, for example, that David Mark and others are behind the present crisis. Look at their backgrounds. Mark had been a military officer who has been involved in every coup d’etat in the history of Nigeria. He started getting involved with coup d’etat since he was a Captain. And he has been involved in every coup.
With these people who have no respect for law, who got to where they are because of the participation in series of coups, we shouldn’t be surprised by their behaviour because old habits die hard. That is why they are behaving the way they are behaving. So I don’t know who is scripting what. But I want to tell you that the best thing that can happen to the sanity of politics in Nigeria is to deal with Saraki and Dogara.
You think the party can expel them and the heavens will not fall?
Excuse me! I am not privy to the series of acts of indiscipline by these people. But I want to assure you that from my own personal example, from an example of a party I formed, PRP, which is the most outstanding opposition party in the history of Nigeria, we had a history of expelling our governors and heavens did not fall. I told you we expelled Balarabe Musa and finished his career, and we expelled Rimi and finished his career. So what are we talking about?