Musings of a peacemaker

Five serving ministers who were also former senators were nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari last week to serve in a committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that will seek peace with the Senate. This morning, we peep into the mind of one of them [name withheld] as he prepares for the epic assignment. *****************************************When […]

Five serving ministers who were also former senators were nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari last week to serve in a committee headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo that will seek peace with the Senate. This morning, we peep into the mind of one of them [name withheld] as he prepares for the epic assignment.

*****************************************When the President mentioned my name as one of the committee members, I was startled because honestly my mind had wondered away during the Federal Executive Council meeting. It was very courageous of those who brought up the matter of the poor relationship between the Executive and the Senate and they proposed that a solution be found. On my own I would never have brought up that matter, even though it worried me, because I felt that the President liked it that way. The fight was grounding the government but it was also mobilising the President’s core supporters, millions of whom have been energised by this conflict and they have found a new ogre to direct their anger against. All the venom they were once pouring on Jonathan and his people, they are now directing at Saraki and senators.

After a long debate on the matter, the President said ministers who were once senators, including myself, should join the Vice President to seek a solution to this crisis. Soon after the FEC meeting the VP took us to his office, where we had a short meeting to prepare for the assignment. The Senate President is now forming his own committee which will meet with us to iron out matters. At first we heard that Saraki nominated a ranking senator to head their team but we said no, you must chair it yourself. Is the Vice President not senior to you in the national order of precedence? If as Number Two in the whole country he is coming as head of the Executive’s team, how can you as Number Three not come as head of Senate’s team?

But I was not surprised because we politicians have many secret considerations when we do our thing. Former governors especially tend to have a certain superiority complex, and they think that you are nothing in politics if you have not been a governor, if you were a mere legislator or commissioner or even minister. Saraki may be feeling that, was Osinbajo not a mere commissioner? Was he a governor before? The Vice Presidency, is it not by accident that he got it? When Buhari refused to make Tinubu his running mate because of fear of Muslim-Muslim ticket, that was why Tinubu turned around and fetched Osinbajo. That is the way a former governor looks at things.

In fact, the President made a good choice when he made VP the chairman of this reconciliation committee. Maybe he had no other choice because when he first looked around during the FEC meeting, I thought he wanted to ask SGF to chair the team. The assignment would have failed before it started because Babachir himself is going to be one of the issues in the negotiation. I think President remembered it just in time and he nominated VP. Which is very good because this VP, he does not quarrel with anybody. He has never quarrelled with any minister. The party chairman that is quarrelling with Tinubu, VP never involved himself. The entire quarrel with senators and Reps, they never complained about VP. All the politicians that are quarrelling with their godfathers once they get into office, VP never quarrelled with Tinubu. All the newspaper stories about cabals and factions in the presidency, they never mentioned him. In addition the man gets very sharp intellect. He is a quick thinker, and he gets mouth, like the pastor that he is. If anybody can do this assignment, it is VP.

What I am fearing is that as soon as we go there and sit down, our former colleagues in the Senate will be looking at us one kind. They will be saying, because you are a minister now, that is why you are coming to tell us to tolerate what Executive agents are doing to us. You, when you were a senator, did you like it when we summoned the head of an Executive agency and he refused to come? Were you happy that time if the presidency kept sending EFCC after us, kept pushing social media to allege certificate scandal, kept pushing Customs to say that we imported cars without paying duty, and kept saying that we padded the budget and allocated jumbo package to ourselves? 

Our former Senate colleagues will say to us, you former senators who are now ministers, was it not together with you that we once did everything? The jumbo pay that they say we are collecting, were you not collecting it before? Or did you ever return your own? But just because you are sitting next to Buhari, people think you are saints and we are devils. Is it not because the National Assembly has no secrets? Unless we go into executive session, everything we do is in front of reporters. Do they know what you ministers are collecting? When you go home for weekend, more people go to the house of a minister than the ones who go to a senator’s house. Is it not because they know that your post is juicier than our own, even though no one elected you? 

Anyway, even Saraki, I think I know the reason why he initially tried to dodge serving on the Senate peace committee. It is because, as one senator told newspapers last week, the main issue in the poor relationship between Senate and Executive is this trial of Saraki before the Code of Conduct Tribunal. The man said if only that trial is terminated, all the wahala will end. If they tell us that when we sit with them, how can Oga VP go back to President and tell him to end that Saraki case? If we make that recommendation, will President not sack all of us? On the other hand, I agree with that man that as long as Saraki is standing in the CCT dock while 50 senators are waiting for him on the courtroom’s benches, trouble will not end.

The way I see it, President must sacrifice some people if this wahala is to end. I don’t know whether our committee can recommend that but the three people in the centre of the whole thing are Magu, Ali and Babachir. Maybe Ali can be saved, provided he ditches that his policy of stopping every old car and asking for duty. Even we ministers were appalled when we heard of that plan. The man is too rigid. I hear that when he was military governor in Kaduna they were calling him Netanyahu. I think VP will be able to persuade senators to stop insisting that Ali must wear uniform. How can President order Ali to wear uniform when he did not order our exuberant ministerial colleague to ditch his self-created uniform? That red star on our colleague’s beret even reminds me of one old book called Red Star Over China.

I think President may have to sacrifice Magu so we can get Senate to pass our other things. Maybe he can save Babachir too, though I don’t know how. The only thing I know is that all this would not have happened if our party had been working properly. Did NPN senators ever reject a nominee that Shagari sent? But when we go to the committee, even if VP asks me to speak, I will not speak my mind because the newspapers are saying that there will be a cabinet reshuffle soon. You want President to include me in the reshuffle, in this recession?