Five very odd events characterised the Nigerian political scene last week. The oddest event of all of them, I think, was the apology tendered by the new House Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and his deputy, Emeka Ihedioha, to the PDP’s National Working Committee [NWC] for having stood for election and winning it to become the two top House leaders. It was the first time in the political history of Nigeria that anyone had apologised for winning an election, for that matter with a landslide margin. Usually, it is those who lose elections in Nigeria that are apologetic and who go around alleging all kinds of things.

Why was Tambuwal apologising? Allegedly because Ihedioha and himself contested the election against the wish of the Presidency and the party bosses, who had zoned the Speaker’s chair to the party’s near-extinct South West wing. Very good. This is a reminder to President Goodluck Jonathan that he has not yet apologised to NWC for winning the party’s presidential ticket when the party’s chairman had publicly stated in May last year that it was reserved for the North under a 2002 National Caucus agreement, to which Jonathan was a participant and a signatory.

Rather than comply with the party’s decision, Dr. Jonathan used his accidentally acquired position as President to make the EFCC to arrest Vincent Ogbulafor over a forgotten 10 year-old scandal. He then forced the party’s NEC last September to adopt the most ambiguous resolution in its history, saying the party’s constitutionally-enshrined zoning and power rotation policies were still valid, but that everyone was free to contest the then upcoming primaries.

Commenting for the first time publicly on Tambuwal’s election in New York last week, Jonathan said, “the House of Representatives in their wisdom voted for their own candidates against the wishes of the party and I don’t think it is a problem. Other options could be explored to balance the positions in the House.”

The President’s mild public response to an event that greatly jolted him politically was just as well. As PDP’s national leader, his moral authority to enforce the zoning policy was very weak indeed. Last September, on the day he went to collect the party nomination forms, Dr. Jonathan delivered a self-serving reading of the party Constitution, saying that zoning did not apply to the choice of the President, but of other offices after the president is chosen. The NWC never came out to read the relevant sections of the party constitution to him.

Now, unlike Dr. Jonathan in 2002, Tambuwal was most probably not present and was not a signatory to the document produced by a small party clique at the Obudu Cattle Ranch last month which allocated the House Speaker’s chair to the South West. If the party could not force a member to abide by an agreement in which he personally took part, how can it seek to enforce it on a man who was not present when a decision was made? Instead of huffing and puffing and arresting rebellious members, why didn’t the party bosses simply declare that the zoning of House offices still remains, but that Tambuwal, Ihedioha and everyone else were free to contest, in line with NEC’s ambiguous decision of last September?

Instead, PDP national secretary Abubakar Kawu Baraje issued a very odd statement on behalf of NWC on Tuesday. He said, “The principle of zoning is still an integral part of the PDP Constitution. The idea of zoning is a well thought-out philosophy for national stability and integration, Prior to the election of Principal Officers that took place in the Senate and the House of Representatives on the 6th of June 2011, the NWC in collaboration with other decision making bodies of our party made spirited efforts to build a consensus around the zoning formula. The NWC is currently consulting other organs of the party to re-assess the entire scenario and will come up with an appropriate policy in due course.” A veiled threat was what it was.

The next very odd statement was made the next day by acting party chairman Dr. Bello Haliru Mohamed when the Speaker and Deputy Speaker called at party headquarters. He said NWC accepted the two men’s apology, but that they should go and make amends by adhering to zoning in the allocation of the remaining House leadership positions.

Mohamed said, “We wish you better and more rapport with the party and our first directive to you now that what has happened has happened, the remaining positions in the House, you should allow the party to look at how we can balance it, so that each of the other zones are taken care of before we come back to you to give you the chance to lead your people in electing to reflect balance in the leadership of the House. Thank you very much for this visit, we accept your apology.”

Stated simply, he was saying that the next most senior position, i.e. House Leader, should be given to the South West, most probably to Mrs Mulikat Adeola Akande, the original choice of the party bosses to occupy Tambuwal’s chair.

This demand by the acting chairman may look reasonable to some people, but it is not easy at all for Tambuwal because the overwhelming majority group that brought him to office must have shared all the other offices among themselves. How can he now turn around and say to them, “Let us give the House Leader’s post to Mulikat in order to appease the minority faction and the party bosses”? The man [or woman] to whom the post was allocated by the group will say, “Is that? Because you have won your own, you are now saying that we should give my own post to Mulikat? Is this how you will reward your loyal supporters?”

It is the same dilemma faced by state governors when it comes to the nomination for ministerial and other juicy Federal posts. To an outsider, it looks like the right thing to do is to offer the state’s ministerial slot to the man who lost to the governor in the party primaries in order to unify the party, but it is more complicated than that, because the governor must have already promised the job to someone else within his own group as part of the process of building a winning coalition.

This is what grassroots Kebbi politician Alhaji Garba Dandiga once said, “The man who is himself indebted, can he extend credit? You have not repaid your own supporters for their loyalty, how can you go around extending lines of credit to opponents?”

The next very odd political statement last week emanated from some Yoruba leaders, who condemned Tambuwal for usurping a position allocated by the party bosses to their region. Well, well. This was the first time since the debate over zoning and power rotation erupted last year that South West PDP leaders were coming out behind the zoning idea. If they truly believed in zoning and turn by turn politics, where were they last year when Jonathan usurped the turn of the North?

They ought to be reminded of what the old German priest Pastor Martin Niemoeller of the Evangelical Lutheran Church once said, “In Germany, the Nazis first came for the Communists, and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one to speak up for anyone”.

All that can be said about last week’s many odd events was that PDP’s leaders got their just deserts. And, how sour those desserts were!

SOURCE: www.dailytrust.com