Making Political Hay

And it is still not exactly clear whether what happened during the recent leadership elections in the National Assembly is a defeat for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, or a victory for democracy. Or, is it, after, all only a contrived, cynical resurrection of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, through the backdoor? Or, perhaps […]

And it is still not exactly clear whether what happened during the recent leadership elections in the National Assembly is a defeat for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, or a victory for democracy. Or, is it, after, all only a contrived, cynical resurrection of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, through the backdoor? Or, perhaps a combination of all the three?
In a season of open defiance, APC’s choices for the Senate Leader and Speaker of the House and their deputies were defeated, just as were the party legislative leaders, chief whips and their deputies. Or, is the expected backlash already coming? If it is, it is not because of a plan. It comes in spite of the absence of one: no plan to hit and none with which to fight back.
Or are the National Assembly elections the antitheses of the presidential one? Just as the presidential election showed, the president garnered more votes in the territory of Northern Christians than in the South-West, which, as a result of the merger that produced the APC, was supposed to have been the epicenter of an electoral alliance built to ensure vote spread and a plurality that would propel the new party to easy victory.
The campaign turnout, the pronouncements by political and religious leaders in the North-Central, and the votes when they were cast, and the relief seen when they were counted, and the euphoria that greeted the announcement of the winner—and the extremely palatable aftertaste that had since remained on all palates—all went to show that the plot to divide the North along religious lines, or incite an anti-Hausa-Fulani alliance orchestrated by the former government and its undertakers would come to such short grief.
It was indeed a miracle that a violent plot supported by Federal might, fueled by liberally proliferated arms in a North that had been effectively Gazafied, with a Boko Haram that was supposed to have alienated and permanently enraged Christians would come to such a happy end.
But if politicians in the North had been serious and were truly seeking healing, they should have drawn up deliberate plans to achieve such electoral outcomes as would promote brotherhood and fellow-feeling and the real oneness of destiny.
The new Speaker, who is seen by not a few as a fanatic Christian, has now given the lie to that claim—a description now thankfully belied by the way he handled his victory and by the very attribution of that victory to unlikely patrons, a fact that, no doubt, must have been helped by the identity of the sponsors of his emergence and by the spontaneous expression of joy and partying by Northern leaders and followership.
Basking in the glow of a family affair, Dogara said, “This victory that we celebrate here today won’t have been possible without God, the Sultanate and others across the country. For us who are Christian minorities in the North, we should acknowledge that this victory we are celebrating here today was made possible by the intervention of the Sultan and others. We should know that there is a new thinking in the North. We owe it a duty to make sure we unite our own part of the country. My emergence as Speaker is a result of the support of all major tribes of Nigeria, and all faiths.”
Though Dogara didn’t exactly how His Eminence helped his emergence as the Speaker, it was a useful enough attribution that would prove of greater utility to the North than the Speakership. But even if it is not true that the Sultan played any part; and perhaps he couldn’t possibly have had any part to play except perhaps by the tangential osmosis of influence he exerted through the office of his Matawalleship of the former Speaker and currently Sokoto State Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who played a central role.
Obviously, there will be challenges for the new Speaker at home. The other time I enquired while I was in Bauchi, I was told that nowadays, a Muslim even on passing couldn’t offer his prayers in Tafawa Balewa. I didn’t have the time to conduct an investigation, but I hope it was all an unfounded exaggeration or at least a sad reflection of the painful reality on the ground—the absence and cessation of congregational prayer occasioned by the fact of departed refugees. Whatever it is, it looks like the first challenge staring Dogara in the face.
As Dogara said, “What should be uppermost in our minds as stakeholders is to restore sustainable peace in the area [of Bogoro and Tafawa Balewa Federal Constituency]. This will pave the way for all our brothers and sisters who fled T/Balewa to return home. Pursuing policies that continue to divide the people and confining some bona fide indigenes of T/Balewa to refugees in perpetuity is a great disservice to our dear state and our people.
“In conclusion, let me commend the residents of T/Balewa town for remaining peaceful and embracing hope that this brazen rape of our constitution would soon be remedied. I enjoin all, regardless of creed and ethnicity to invest in peace building and welcome with open arms our brothers and sisters who relocated from the town and are now facing untold hardship in other parts of our dear state. There is no better way to live in a world of diversity.”
We are all fallible human beings: and that precisely is why we are human; for, perfection is to be found only in God. We—all of us—must, therefore, today open a new leaf and learn to tolerate each other, learn to accept each other, and learn to be each other’s brother’s keeper. Or perish: which is what division and divisiveness in the nation and in the legislature entail.
“I will not lead a divided House,”Dogara said. “Time of bickering is over: we must hit the ground running. Nigerians won’t take any further excuses.” But in the end, it all depends on whether in coming down to earth, we hit the ground running at all—and whether in all this, people in the National Assembly shall do so actually running. However, whether they do that or they don’t, the election of the Right Honourable Yakubu Dogara as the eighth Speaker of the House of Representatives, which may be seen as an antiparty act, can also be seen as compensation manufactured by Providence to make up for the lack of a political plan for the future by politicians of the North.
It might have been a painful antiparty activity; but it ought to be clear that those who countenanced and accepted the Tambuwalisation of the House of Representatives in 2011 must find it in themselves to accede to its Dogaratisation today. And in between, we should make the hay of reconciliation while the sun of politics shines, even if it is ever so darkly.