Sometime around October of 2011, Sen. Bukola Saraki, representing Kwara Central moved a motion seeking an inquest into how some N240 billion budgeted for fuel subsidy was expended.

That motion began the opening of a pandora box. Sleaze that smelled to high heavens. Although N240 billion had been budgeted for fuel subsidy for the entire year, more than N800 billion had already been spent. And the year was still in its first quarter. There was more to follow. By the time the National Assembly could dig halfway into the the subsidy rot, it was discovered that although we consumed just about 35 million litres per day (which we never ever got), our government was paying fuel importers for 58 million litres, for fuel not brought in. We’d been swindled some $6.8 billion. It was the biggest racket of all time. All the big men and oil companies and top government functionaries, and their fronts, were caught with their hands right inside the pie. Of course, Saraki, having stepped on very big toes with his motion and subsequent crusade to ensure the country got to the bottom of the matter, had to pay a price. The EFCC was literally deployed to Ilorin on a scavenge mission. The brief was simple: Dig up every murk possible on the former Kwara State governor. They too did not have to dig too deep before they stumbled on several forgotten corruption allegations, many of which had been investigated and dismissed for lack of substance. But the mere fact that such allegations existed was more than enough to prosecute a politically motivated anti-graft war. They went after him, rather than address the issues he raised in the subsidy scandal. Today, while the last may not have been heard of the subsidy scam (going by what the audit of NNPC recently revealed), Saraki is yet to emerge from the backlash of the subsidy mafia’s fight-back. Today, it’s still those bogus allegations that some people (including even in the APC, which has turned out to be the biggest beneficiary of Saraki’s revelations) are using to tarnish his image. And the reason? Saraki’s name came up in the permutations for who becomes the next President of the Senate. Shame! But, must the APC seek to diminish one of its leading lights in order to share political office? Now, they would force Saraki’s supporters to also fight back, by looking for what dirt they can dig up on Senators George Akume, Adamu Abdullahi, Danjuma Goje or whoever else his name pops up in the permutation for Senate President. In the end, the APC would be the loser for it, giving that the names coming up are some of the party’s bests. Very soon, the APC, in a bid to scheme some of its own people out of plum office, would, on its own, expose all of its leaders as candidates for scrutiny in the much trumpeted anti-graft war Buhari is coming to wage. Come to think of it, which of our former office holders, especially politicians, would survive a thorough EFCC probe? How much did we pay them in office? How come they all came out billionaires several times over? Let’s not go there! But must APC repeat every self-destructing mistake the PDP made? Is APC, like the PDP, going to form the government and also constitute the biggest opposition to its own government? As the schemings for Senate Presidency gathers momentum, some people within the party have even tried to sell the story of how Tinubu is backing the candidacy of one senator and not supporting the aspiration of the other. How the party leadership had endorsed one candidate and not another. Of course, I’m dismissing everything as rumour. But one thing is very sure: Very soon, they will so polarise the party this solid house Tinubu painstakingly built, over 16 years, would come crashing on all of them. And when it does, the bang would be louder than what we heard on March 28 (when Jonathan crashed) and April 11 (when the clay-footed deities that were his PDP governors came tumbling after him). In fact, if this trend is not nipped in the bud right now, sooner or later, some people within the party would begin to question even the leadership and preeminence of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Yes, they would begin to question why he should be the clearing house for everything and every appointment. The same people who did not complain, or question how Tinubu had, had to singlehandedly shoulder the enormous weight of sustaining a rag-tag opposition army and turning it into a formidable political force that has now seized power at the centre, would suddenly find their voice to challenge him now that, as the Yoruba would say, the food is done. In fact, this is already happening. Only last week, I learnt that some two or three erstwhile allies of the Jagaban had begun clandestinely worming their way to Buhari through other contacts and desperately trying to keep the national leader out of the picture of what they’re doing. But that’s story for another day. Back to the presidency of the Eighth Senate, I feel that rather than insisting of why Saraki should get it or why Goje, Abdullahi or Akume should not get it, the question every Nigerian (lawmaker or kingmaker) should be asking is: What should we be looking for in the next senate president? We need a senate president, who can galvanise the various interests in the Senate (and the National Assembly in general) to achieve harmony and deliver on the APC promise of change. A senate president, who would not only help to achieve stability in the Senate and prevent a return of the legendary banana peels, but also help Buhari to stabilise his government. The next senate president should be a politician, technocrat, thinker, philosopher, visionary rolled in one. He has to be a true agent, not just because he’s chanting “Change… Change” and waving the Buhari name like a talisman.

We must not forget that some people sacrificed their own presidential ambition to ensure that the APC had the rancour-free primaries that produced the Buhari candidacy. Some others contributed immensely to knocking together the intellectual framework of the “Change manifesto”. Some were even the arrowheads of the nPDP that sounded the death knell for PDP, and dealt the ruling party that killer blow it never recovered from? As the search gathers steam, over-bloated ego and selfishness must be made to take the back seat, to clear the way for national interest to take pre-eminence. I don’t believe the question of religion has a place in this equation. If we’ve said it over and over that we do not mind a Muslim/Muslim or Christian/Christian ticket for presidential candidate and running mate, why must we begin to make a mountain out of a molehill over the faith of the president and senate president? Whoever complained that both Jonathan and David Mark were Christians? If the president and senate president were Christians in the outgoing administration, why can’t both be Muslims in the incoming regime? And, come to think of it, is the senate president a preserve of Christians and Speaker of the House reserved for Muslims? But, jokes apart, how many of our politicians are genuine Christians or Muslims? Yes, we can score Buhari and Vice President-elect, Yemi Osinbajo, above average, but can we honestly score the others so generously? How come we are calling for balance and equity on religion, but are silent on other issues that equally need balancing – like, for instance, the fact that one of the front runners is from the same state as the outgoing senate president? Truth is: Majority Party status apart, APC probably has the best candidates for presidency of the Eighth Senate. If merit, and not party affiliation, were to be used in picking the Senate president for the incoming senate, five, out of a shortlist of six prospects, would ordinarily be APC senators. The party, therefore, does not have to destroy itself, or dance naked in the market place, to produce one. So, the APC should stop this desperation to inherit the curse of PDP. For the challenge ahead is more serious than just choosing a senate president, even when it is also clear that its choice of leadership for the National Assembly could be decisive on how the Buhari administration ultimately performs. But the danger is; if APC does not play its card right and fair, the table could so turn that the few PDP senators in the chamber would end up determining who becomes APC president of the senate. In fact, if they play their card well, they could even snatch the presidency from APC. After all, anti-party balloting is not unheard of in APC, nor in the National Assembly for that matter. If you’re in doubt, ask PDP and Tambuwal. Painfully, after the National Assembly war, the new ruling party is still going to face another war, as it tries to knock together a cabinet. My fear is that the war ahead of APC, which is basically a battle over the sharing of the booty of electoral victory, may turn out to be deadlier than the battle to wrest power from PDP. I just don’t like the thought of it. For sure, the battle to install the next Senate president reminds me of a local analogy I grew up with. It is the analogy of a polygamous family where the father and breadwinner suddenly died, interstate. That is what the post-2015 election scenario looks like. Nigeria is now like a polygamous home where the father suddenly died interstate. APC, all children of the same mother, have battled the PDP, and other children of their mother’s rival wives and concubines. They have equally landed a chunky part of the late man’s estate. Now, it is time for these children of the same mom to fight an even bigger war, as they try to re-share their mother’s share of the estate. Oftentimes, the ensuing war turns out to be deadlier than the first fight with their half-siblings. PDP as opposition party A few days ago, I listened to PDP’s game-changer chairman – the same man who changed the ruling party in Nigeria to a whimpering opposition party – reassuring that the party would provide the needed opposition to Buhari’s presidency. In other words, that the PDP would do to the APC, exactly what the APC did while PDP was in power. He would not be the first PDP chieftain to so threaten. The likes of Doyin Okupe and Olisa Metuh had said similar things in different ways, with one of them, threatening to actually make things “ungovernable” for Buhari. It was a poor rehash of that infamous statement of the Buhari camp on losing the 2011 elections. But I don’t think that threat should make Buhari or anybody in APC uncomfortable. The PDP does not have what it takes to bring that about. For one, they have not even gone to Lai Mohammed to take the crash course in opposition politicking, which Alhaji has so generously offered to give them. Besides, having hounded out most of those who helped to found and fund the party when it was not in government (people like members of the G-13, Atiku Abubakar, Orji Kalu and many others) and pushed several others who helped deliver the votes to the party into APC, it would take a major re-engineering for PDP to continue to survive, let alone challenge anybody. I think it was Dr. Alex Ekwueme, who once said that the only thing that held PDP together was the fact that it had government patronage to share. Now that they have shared all the money, everyone is bound to disperse. So, where will the opposition now come from? Is it these same PDP people who were so greedy that they pocketed money released to them for their party’s campaign into their private pockets, that would now use their own private money to fund opposition politics? I dey laugh o! They should go ask Tinubu, Atiku, Kalu what it takes to really fund party and politics without government purse. My prediction is that by this time next year, many of those now threatening to give APC hell would be in APC. PDP would eventually be rebuilt by those from whom it was taken away by today’s political soldiers of fortune.