Monday Column By Hameed M. Bello, PhD
hamdbelo@yahoo.co.uk
All things being equal, the leadership of the 10th National Assembly comprising the Senate and the House of Representatives will be inaugurated by the current President-elect, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu on June 13, after he himself would have been sworn in as substantive president on May 29. A day before he inaugurated the National Assembly, he would have carried out his first major public political assignment as president on June 12 by overseeing the Democracy Day celebration. Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari had previously approved the appointment of June 12 as the new democracy day in honour of the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola, adjudged to have won the June 12 1993 presidential election under the political platform of the Social Democratic Party, SDP. His running mate was Ambassador Baba Gana Kingibe. Unfortunately, their victory, believed to have been a product of a free and fair contest, was overturned by the regime of then Head of State and Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, on grounds of preventing a coup. The rest is now history.
The big question is, upon inauguration, who will be the Senate President and the Deputy, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Deputy and the other principal officers of the National Assembly. It is unlikely that the current Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan from Yobe State and the North East will be returned considering that he is from the same zone as the Vice President-elect, Senator Kashim Shettima who hails from Borno state. The current Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila will be out of the way too since he is from Lagos State and the South West zone as the President-elect, Bola Tinubu, except if the House will replicate the anti party maneuvering the way it did when it defied zoning arrangements to elect former Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal as the 10th Speaker serving between June 2011 and 29 May 2015. Also, the Senate replicated the Tambuwal scenario when former Senate President Bukola Saraki was elected by some Senators while others were away at a meeting with party leaders to harmonize positions on choice of Senate President. Saraki was the 13th President of the Senate from 2015 to 2019 and Chair of the 8th National Assembly.
This is a good reason for the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Presidency to be smart enough to preempt this type of non conformist stand of some lawmakers who will discreetly set aside party position on the structure of governance. While the Tinubu presidency may not be interested in a rubber stamp Assembly, as some of his aides have claimed, I doubt if the regime will be comfortable with an Assembly that will be an obstacle to his governance agenda and initiatives. This is the reason it has to pick interest in who occupies what position in the leadership of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
As we hear from people close to the Tinubu presidential campaign team, the president-elect has his eyes set on getting the right people in places in the 10th Assembly that will help deepen the achievement of his goals in the delivery of good governance. We hear also that he will like to provide a level playing field for all stakeholders across party lines to pave way for inclusive governance without undermining the interest of his party which is in a simple majority.
We hear also that the APC is treading lightly by exercising cautious discretion not to have a Senate President or Speaker who will be subject of consistent litigation on account of allegations of corruption around him. Senators-elect who have pending corruption cases may not be favoured by their party and colleagues in this respect. But again, the issue is that corruption cases are being taken for granted, normalized or given ‘safe landing’ when political interests are at stake.
Since the position of the Senate President is touted to go to the South East or the South South, names like Senators Orji Orji Uzor Kalu (Abia, South East), Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom, South South), Adams Oshiomhole (APC Edo, South South) and Dave Umahi (APC Ebonyi, South East) are being mentioned as APC Senators under consideration.
In the House of Representatives, feelers are that the APC will likely Zone the Speaker slot to the North West, especially if the Senate President goes to the South East or South South. This is however not sacrosanct because of the unpredictable disposition of lawmakers in both chambers, especially the ‘hot headed’ green chamber legislators. Already, the current Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, APC from Plateau State is eying the Speaker slot, believing that he has paid his dues as presiding officer for four years. From the North West, names linked to the Speaker race include the embattled majority leader, Hon Al-Hassan Ado Doguwa from Kano state, Hon Sada Soli from Katsina state, Hon Mukhtar Aliyu Betera from Borno state, Aminu Jaji from Zamfara State and Tajudden Abbas from Kaduna State.
That said, the final decider will be the zoning preference adopted by the party to share offices among the six geopolitical zones. Although, officially, the President-elect has said he would not interfere with the elections of the presiding officers into the National Assembly, it is clear that both Tinubu and Shettima, former senators themselves, will take a more active role in the process, at least.
From indications, the North West has some edge over the rest of the regions in the race for Speaker. The zone was able to provide the party, and thus the President-elect reasonable number of votes during the Presidential and National Assembly election of 25th February, 2023 and may well do so again in the Governorship and State Assembly elections. Also, the northern governors, especially those from the North West have demonstrated profound leadership by insisting on power rotation to the South which eventually favoured Tinubu. He may want to reciprocate that warm gesture. However, in the end it may come down to who has the largest number of lawmakers in the National Assembly and in that case, Katsina State is ahead with its three Senators and nine members of the House of Reps, giving it the largest contingent of APC legislators from any zone. This will likely favour Hon Sada Soli, who represents Jibia/Kaita federal constituency in Katsina State and is the currently committee chair for Water resources. His name stands out in the House of Reps today because of the trust he elicits from colleagues and Assembly staff alike, but also as a result of his remarkable experience as a former civil servant who worked for a decade and a half in the National Assembly, serving as clerk for committees in both the Senate and the House of Reps. He also spent four years at the Nigerian Mission in Washington as Special Assistant and Minister Counsellor to Ambassador Jibril Aminu on the approval of President Olusegun Obasanjo through a Special Dispensation that is granted by only the president when a crucial need arises. After gaining crucial diplomatic experience, Sada returned to Nigeria and was posted as Clerk to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. Three years later he resigned and joined politics. Hön Sada Soli was first elected into the green chamber in 2007. In 2011 he became Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the House of Reps, Hön Aminu Tambuwal. He returned to the House in 2019 where he was chairman of the House Committee on Water Resources. He also won election to return to the 10th House for a third term and has backing to run for the Speaker of the 10th Assembly. Going by his dexterity, experience, competence and the goodwill he enjoys among his colleagues, Soli may be the man to beat for the Speakership of the 10th House of Representatives.
