In the period running up to, and immediately after,
the March 28 presidential election, a number of us were
already disillusioned, especially with the festival of
defections hosted by the All Progressives Congress party. We
concluded that the acronym wasn't what it was registered as,
that APC simply meant "All Politicians Congress", citing its
apparent lack of ideology and even criteria for membership
that made it a rebranded version of the PDP—the party it
defeated with the support of the people.
Bukola Saraki
Chaos was all the doomsday
theorists predicted of this legion of politicians whose only
common interest was their hatred of former President
Goodluck Jonathan, the elimination of whom has now laid
bare the unstable pillars around which the APC was formed:
the CPC bloc, the ACN bloc, the New PDP bloc, the ANPP bloc
and of course the fair-weather PDP bloc.
Aside from the post-election defectors, APC's victory in
the last elections was an outcome to which all blocs
contributed, and thus the question of compensation of all
blocs quickly become a matter for curiousity. This only
escalated with the Senate Presidency bid and then victory of
Dr. Bukola Saraki of the New PDP bloc, which was
challenged, and still furiously being done, by the ACN bloc of
the political party. I don't know when the National Assembly
leadership tussle became a clash of BukolaSaraki's ambition
and Bola Tinubu's shadow, perhaps because I've never ever
exactly seen the latter as the one-man kamikaze portrayed
by his supporters and the media. I see him, simply and
squarely, as an influential party stalwart with certain powers
and clearly marked limitations.
I see a number of us, in the spark of our hatred
of Saraki who is, of course, not my model politician, citing
biological and political records from various archives to
present the man as morally unfit to lead, some even
describing him as surreptitious defector. I wouldn't have
bothered if similar criteria are applied to his assumed
challenger. What partisanship does to us is it disables our
sense of reason. Trust me, you can't praise Tinubu as a hero
and dismiss Saraki as antecedently corrupt and thus morally
low.
We may choose to be selectively objective in our public
analyses, promoting narratives that favour our principals,
but none of us is electorally useful at the two chambers.
The partisans may choose to charge Saraki of non-
compliance with the party's non-existent ideology, but with
his victory alongside a PDP deputy, it's easy to infer that the
leadership of our bicameral legislature is already promising.
We must be wary of one-party dominance in any way. Not
when memory of similar arrangement headed by the PDP
still lingers.
We must not ask for a Senate President that is loyal to, or
intimidated by, the President of the Federation. Nigerians
must ask for one capable of highlighting the relative
independence of the Legislative while also respecting the
interrelationship needed to smoothly run the affairs of
Nigeria.
But the winner in this first litmus test is Mr. President.
Through his spokesman on Twitter, referring to the
legislative elections as "somewhat constitutional", a phrase I
consider product of Femi Adesina's naïveté, President
Buhari seems to have highlighted his neutrality, refusing to
subscribe to the approach of his party. On his official
account on Twitter, however, he wrote, "Although I would
have preferred the new leaders to have emerged through
the process established by the party, I am willing to work
with whoever the lawmakers elected."
I'm prouder of the man for honouring his May 29 promise
not to interfere with the activities of the Legislative and the
Judiciary.
What I fear now is APC's impulsive reaction, venting and
threatening to deal with Saraki/Dogara camp instead of a
diplomatic, less dramatic in-house intervention. What APC
must know now is that any attempt to reverse thelegislature
leadership elections will see the beginning of a crisis that
may demolish all the structures upon which it stands.
Similarly, it needs an immediate reality check, that the
goodwill it enjoys isn't what it assumes, that Nigerians
indeed regard it as peculiarly messianic, and as genuine
advocate of change. APC is APC because of the people's
confidence in Buhari, who has already refused to lend them
his powerful brand. May God save us from us.

Intresting