To the politically undiscerning, what happened on the floor of the National Assembly (NASS) on Tuesday, June 9 was beyond belief.
A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) roundly trounced in the general election two months ago, made a dramatic comeback and became the kingmakers in the leadership poll, almost stealing the thunder and joy of the newly crowned All Progressives Congress (APC).
The PDP produced as Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who occupied the same position in the sixth and seventh Senate, and was instrumental in the emergence of Bukola Saraki as Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as House of Representatives Speaker.
This upset the APC apparatchik who had anointed Ahmed Lawan as Senate President and Femi Gbajabiamila as House Speaker.
The angst in the APC circle right is understandable. But the self inflicted mistake that led to the near catastrophic political venture was avoidable. All too often, our politicians play God but there are always limits to the politics of imposition.
That is the message that was clearly delivered in both the Senate and House when candidates other than those anointed by a clique in the APC leadership triumphed.
By the folly of willful imposition of favoured legislators on independent-minded colleagues in the Senate and House, the APC was dusted by the PDP.
Saraki, rejected by the APC, negotiated with the PDP and emerged the President of the Red Chamber and de facto Number Three citizen.
By quid pro quod, Ekweremadu was returned to his post. Dogara, also rejected as APC’s choice candidate, also emerged Speaker. Finally, a dark horse, Lashun Yusuf, from Dogara’s camp became Deputy Speaker.
By that masterstroke of political ingenuity, Saraki and Dogara outwitted the APC leadership, turning the tables of humiliation the PDP endured in the past.
Now, APC saber-rattling has begun to save face rather than concede defeat to the winners, take the appropriate measures to redress the schism that emerged since the straw poll on Saturday, June 6 and move on.
It is instructive that this is the first time that the Senate has produced a bipartisan leadership since the inception of the Fourth Republic, despite APC’s commanding majority of 60 to 49 in the Senate and 214 to 125 in the House.
This should not have been so if the party did enough to build consensus among its members and present a united front rather than riding roughshod over some stakeholders.
The manipulation that led to the revolt was unnecessary, moreso when President Muhammadu Buhari said beforehand that he had no preferred candidate. In other words, he was ready to work with those the lawmakers elected to lead in the eighth NASS.
Now that the party has found itself in this sorry leadership pass, the question should be how to stabilise the institution of the NASS to provide effective governance the APC promised Nigerians.
We disagree with those who say because Ekweremadu is from the opposition, the APC can no longer implement its manifesto. That sounds too defeatist.
The result of the NASS elections is democracy at work. While the PDP is entitled to its hubris, no matter how fleeting or even pyrrhic its victory may turn out to be, it behoves the APC to put its house in order by slaying the dragon of godfatherism and smothering its illegitimate offspring called imposition.
Unless that is done, the APC will continue to encounter such avoidable mishaps.
There is a world of difference between party supremacy, which is desirable – and imposition of candidates by party godfathers, which is objectionable in a democracy.
Let APC leaders formulate the party’s policies, marshal strategies and select the best candidates to implement the tasks as party supremacy demands.
But this must be done by promoting politics of inclusiveness, and not otherwise as the architects of the mishap did in their recent political incarnation in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
We therefore cannot agree otherwise with what APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun said on Friday, June 12, about the way Saraki and Dogara emerged which is tantamount to letting them be.