As Tambuwal jumps ship

He said, “Before I hit the gavel on the motion for adjournment, I want to make this formal announcement to this House.Based on the provision of the 1999 constitution and having regards to the development of PDP in my own state, Sokoto State, I hereby announce my membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Let […]

He said, “Before I hit the gavel on the motion for adjournment, I want to make this formal announcement to this House.
Based on the provision of the 1999 constitution and having regards to the development of PDP in my own state, Sokoto State, I hereby announce my membership of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Let me register my profound appreciation to all of you my colleagues for the unflinching support you have continued to extend to me for the overall national interest and development of our democracy. May almighty God continue to guide us all.”
While APC members welcomed the defection with joy, PDP members sat ashen-faced. Minority leader Femi Gbajabiamila (APC, Lagos) said, “We welcome and applaud the Speaker’s decision. Ever since the crises started in PDP which led to the formation of the ‘New PDP’ and the defection of five PDP governors, 37 PDP members of the House of Representatives to the APC, and the formal merger of the ‘New PDP’ with the APC, we had all along known that this day will come. We are proud to acknowledge that the Speaker remains not only a member of the House of Representatives but also it’s Speaker. This position is consistent with the law and practice in a presidential system of government.” But House Leader Mulikat Akande-Adeola said it is purely a PDP affair and that the party would take action at the appropriate time. She said, “This is a party affair. Members take decision on the floor based on party. So, the party will take decision at the appropriate time.”
It was long known to the public that the speaker’s personal and political relationship with the Jonathan presidency and the PDP national leadership is very poor. He had long ceased to attend PDP functions, including a welcome rally that President Jonathan attended in Sokoto for the state’s former governor Attahiru Bafarawa, who defected to PDP from APC. Tambuwal upped the ante last week when he attended a Sokoto State APC stakeholders’ meeting. His spokesman Imam Dalhatu Imam later said the speaker only honoured an invitation by Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko “because he was ignored by the Chief Tony Anenih reconciliation committee that was in Sokoto to settle disagreement among PDP members in the state.”
As the speaker said yesterday though, what finally pushed him to defect were developments not so much at the national level as in his native Sokoto State. Two years ago when then party national chairman Bamanga Tukur suspended Wamakko from the party for allegedly ignoring his phone call, Tambuwal audaciously led House members from Sokoto to attend a solidarity rally for Wamakko. He stated there that Wamakko was their political leader and no one could touch him. Angry though PDP leaders were with that stance, they made no move against the powerful Speaker, who has led the House with an iron grip since his election in 2011. When Wamakko led his political group first into New PDP and finally into APC, observers expected that it was only a matter of time before Tambuwal followed suit.
The uppermost question yesterday was whether Tambuwal will remain as House speaker, given that PDP now has 160 members to APC’s 148 while other parties have 12 members. Tambuwal gave no indication that he would quit the exalted seat and in fact the statements of APC House leaders suggested that he will stay put. In that regard they have legality on their side. The 1999 Constitution provided only that House members would elect their speaker and deputy speaker from among themselves. It said nothing about party loyalties. Indeed, if party loyalties were the issue Tambuwal would never have become the speaker, because he was elected by a minority group of PDP legislators allied with almost all the opposition members. At the time there was no APC; it was ACN and ANPP members that provided the bulwark of the votes for his election. The PDP members that supported Tambuwal also did so against their party’s expressed wishes, which was to zone the speaker’s chair to the South West and to give it to Mrs. Adeola-Akande. Tambuwal never forgot this favour and throughout his three years as speaker, he very closely courted APC legislators as well as their governors and party leaders. He attends almost every event organized by APC leaders in the South West. A month ago when Sultan Muhammadu Sa’ad turbaned Tambuwal as the Mutawalle of Sokoto, it was noticeable that APC bigwigs throughout the country attended. The only PDP members present were his colleagues in the House.
Will PDP take this defection lying down? While it cannot ask for the speaker’s ouster on the basis of law, it could try to do so on the basis of morality. Traditionally throughout the country, speakers at federal and state levels as well as the Senate President are members of majority parties, including in states such as Nasarawa, Ekiti and for a time in Edo where a different party controlled the state house. Yet, it has not always been the case in Nigeria. During the Second Republic, the late Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, a minority NPP member, was elected speaker on the strength of the NPN-NPP accord. He retained the position even when the accord collapsed in 1982; he was speaker until the election of 1983.
There is a similar tradition from abroad when, despite the Tories’ sweeping win of the 1992 British general elections, the House of Commons elected Labour Party member Ms Betty Boothroyd as speaker. She remained the speaker until 2000AD; midway into her tenure, her Labour Party defeated the Tories in the 1997 elections and became the majority party.
There is another angle to the law that PDP could try to exploit, namely the provision for a lawmaker’s defection to another party. The Constitution’s Section 68 (g) provides that an MP loses his seat if “being a person whose election to the House was sponsored by one political party, he becomes a member of any other political party before the expiration of the period for which that House was elected: Provided that his membership of the latter political party is not as a result of a division in the political party of which he was previously a member or a merger of two or more political parties or factions by one of which he was previously sponsored.” Tambuwal said yesterday that there was a division in the Sokoto State PDP chapter when Wamakko and his group left the party while older members remained behind. It sounds logical but the matter is in court. House deputy leader Leo Ogor said yesterday that they are still awaiting the court’s ruling on what constitutes party factions. It is to be recalled that earlier this year when many senators and House members defected to APC from PDP, the latter’s leaders went to court to argue that there were no factions in their party.
The next, critical question is what will Tambuwal do now that he has defected to APC? For starters, he immediately becomes the highest political office holder in his new party. The Speaker is number four in the national order of precedence, far above state governors. Tambuwal is expected to attend today’s special APC congress in Abuja and he is expected to receive a rapturous welcome as well as a spotlight seat. Indeed, APC leaders so much valued his coming that today’s congress was specially convened to clear all obstacles in the path of persons such as Tambuwal who will join the party with only weeks to the primaries.
What position will he seek under APC? Early indications were that the Sokoto APC chapter under Wamakko is holding its governorship ticket open for the speaker. The stakeholders’ meeting that he attended last week zoned the seat to his native Sokoto South senatorial zone, though there are many other contenders from the same zone.
Yet, there are major indications that the speaker is not really looking towards Wamakko’s seat but is holding himself in reserve to fly APC’s presidential ticket. After three years as speaker, in which role he rubbed shoulders with the mightiest guys and women in Abuja and also travelled the world, Tambuwal may not value the governorship as much as some others do. It is however his safest bet; observers think if he goes for the Sokoto governorship he would pick it up with little effort, given the Wamakko entourage’s overwhelming political grip of the state.
There are indications that many APC chieftains, notably Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and also the governors, are looking towards Tambuwal to rescue them from a possible logjam. At present there are four men vying for APC’s presidential ticket, General Muhammadu Buhari, former vice president Atiku Abubakar, Kano State governor Rabi’u Kwankwaso and Leadership newspapers’ founder Sam Nda-Isaiah. Buhari is the frontrunner because of his ability to command millions of votes, albeit in the North, while it is feared that South West voters could demur if he gets the ticket. That is where Tambuwal comes in strongest; his activities since 2011 have made him very popular in the South West, at least among its political elite. The fact that he snatched the speakership meant for the zone does not seem to count since, in any case, it was Yoruba MPs that helped him to get there.
Still, Tambuwal would be a viable APC presidential candidate only if General Buhari, in particular, agrees to support him. If he were to go on his won and defeat Buhari in the primaries with the help of Tinubu and the governors, he risks making millions of ardent Buhari supporters to stay away from the polls, as such handing victory to President Jonathan on a platter of gold.
 Things would become clearer in the next days and weeks because APC must produce its candidates by early December, according to the INEC timetable. If indeed there is a push by powerful groups to draft Tambuwal as the compromise candidate for president, it would soon become apparent. Otherwise, the Speaker would take the path of least resistance and go for the governorship of Sokoto State.