With the development at the House of Representatives Tuesday, it is expected that the peace that has since gone on holiday would return to the law-making chamber.
Nearly two months after the inauguration of the 8th National Assembly, the lower House of the nation’s bicameral legislature resolved to bury the hatchets.
But analysts expressed fears that the emergence of Femi Gbajabiamila (APC Lagos) as the majority leader in the House of Representatives, which was aimed at placating aggrieved chieftains of the party may have set a wrong precedent.
It would be recalled that the National Assembly had boiled over following the election of Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara as Senate president and speaker, House of Representatives, respectively, against the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership’s choice of Ahmed Lawan for Senate presidency and Gbajabiamila for House speakership.
The crisis had continued following a disagreement over who should emerge as one of the principal officers in both chambers. While, the APC leadership wanted to foist names on Saraki and Dogara, those in the opposing camp strongly opposed to the move, preferring instead that members should choose their leaders without outside interference.
In the thick of the standoff, the APC threatened to deal with Saraki and Dogara for going contrary to its decisions; hence, spurning at party supremacy.
While the imbroglio lasted, some members of the National Assembly had accused Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a national leader of APC and Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president, of precipitating the impasse for selfish reasons.
While Tinubu was accused of trying to control the National Assembly since Muhammadu Buhari is in firm grip of the Executive arm. It was alleged that his game plan was to use Gbajabiamila to checkmate Buhari.
John Odigie-Oyegun and Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State had, at a meeting held last week, mounted pressure and demanded that Yussuf Lasun, deputy speaker, should step-down for Femi Gbajabiamila.
Resisting the pressure, Lasun was quoted as saying, “Not only that my colleagues on June 9, 2015 elected me on the floor of the House, it was not an appointment, it was an election that was beamed live, and it was watched all over the world, and don’t forget that there were 358 members of that House that were inaugurated that day and were present. Having gone through all that, it will be difficult for anybody to want to say that the part of the solution, part of options opened to APC now is to allow the Deputy Speaker to resign so that there can be peace in the House.”
Analysts had also alleged that Atiku’s interest to galvanise support for 2019 since it is unlikely that President Buhari would go for re-election was responsible for the crisis in the House.
The wheeling and dealing had been so virulent that it was feared, before Tuesday, that the federal lawmakers may not be able to settle to an amicable resolution.
To douse tension, Dogara had earlier postponed resumption of the House after the flop of the mediatory role of Aminu Tambuwal, former speaker, House of Representatives and now governor of Sokoto State.
Justifying the postponement, Mark Gbillah (APC Benue) argued that the speaker’s stance was in tandem with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
According to him, “Why are they insisting on certain people occupying these positions? Is this not clear they have an agenda? Has this ever happened in the history of the National Assembly even during the reign of the PDP?”
President Buhari had met with APC members in the lower chamber Monday to reconcile the opposing camps in the House. It would be recalled that an earlier meeting between APC governors and warring camps in the Senate could not produce tangible result.
But against all postulations, the crisis may have been contained with the emergence of Gbajabiamila as majority leader.
At a post-plenary briefing, Sani Zorro, chairman, Adhoc Committee on Media and Public Affairs, said the crisis that transpired on the floor of the House “were merely transitional in nature.”
He described the outcome of the appointment of the principal of principal officers as “triumph of internal democracy in the House”, explaining that the resolution was based on “patriotism, constitutionalism, reason and rationality”.
Zorro expressed the optimism that henceforth, the legislative activities of the House would be conducted without rancour.
However, the emergence of Gbajabiamila as majority leader has been described as a “negative precedent”, as it went contrary to the principle of federal character.
“What has happened is that the APC as a party has by Gbajabiamila’s emergence opened another chapter that would not augur well for the country. The APC has achieved its aim, arm-twisting the leadership of the lower House to do its bidding; but I tell you that we have not heard the last of it. How can two major offices in the same House go to one geo-political zone when other zones are without anything tangible? It is not justifiable for one zone to produce the deputy speaker as well as majority leader? Now that it has become so, in future other zones will likely cite it as an example,” said a political activist who craved anonymity.
“I also want to believe that we shall henceforth, have a measure of peace. The crisis at the National Assembly has seriously distorted the programme of government. I am very sure that had the National Assembly been peaceful, the APC-led government would have been rightly-headed by now.
The bickering has affected the workings of government. Nigerians would have been able to know if the so-called slow pace of President Muhammadu Buhari was as a result of lack of ideas or occasioned by external factors, such as lack of proper coordination with the National Assembly. Let’s see what happens now that the House has cleared its mess,” the analyst further said.
Zebulon Agomuo
