By Mumini Abdulkareem
Since the inauguration of the ninth national legislature last June, the issue of those to emerge principal officers in the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seems to have set the party on fire going by the manner the Speaker of the House, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila allegedly went ahead with the announcement of those selected.
No sooner than the Speaker announced his choices that the issue sparked another round of crisis within the PDP and the APC with accusation from the opposition that the Speaker was trying to undermine its right to pick minority leaders in the House of Representatives
In making the announcement, Gbajabiamila jettisoned the list sent to him by the leadership of the PDP for its choice of minority leaders. The Speaker ignored a letter by the PDP nominating Kingsley Chinda as the Minority Leader of the House and instead announced Ndudi Elumelu, amidst protest by many lawmakers.
Elumelu from Delta State was named alongside Toby Okechukwu as Deputy Minority Leader, Gideon Gwani as Minority Whip and Adesegun Adekoya as Deputy Minority Whip.
The opposition party had in a letter announced Chinda as its leader in the House. The party’s decision was contained in a letter dated June 26 and addressed to the Speaker and signed by its National Chairman, Uche Secondus, and its Secretary, Umar Tsauri. The party also nominated Chukwuka Onyema as Deputy Minority Leader; Yakubu Barde as Minority Whip and Muraina Ajibola as Deputy Minority Whip.
A similar letter from the party was sent to the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, on the party’s choice of Eyinnaya Abaribe as its Minority Leader. Gbajabiamila, unlike his Senate counterpart, announced different names for the various minority leadership positions.
Rejection
Following the action of the Speaker, the PDP insisted on Kingsley Chinda as its Minority Leader in a statement made available to newsmen by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan. The PDP accused Gbajabiamila of trying to impose leaders on the lawmakers.
According to the statement, “It is instructive to state that the PDP had duly written to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, after consultation with other minority members in the House of Representatives, notifying him of members that have been selected for leadership position in the House of Representatives, in line with dictates of the rules and parliamentary practice.
“However, to our utter dismay, the PDP had discovered that the Speaker attempted to smuggle in names other than those recognised and forwarded to him as the leaders of the Minority in the House of Representatives. The PDP, in the strongest terms, cautions against this abuse of rules, parliamentary practices and procedures as well as the convention and we urge the Speaker to respect the rules and read the list submitted to him by the leadership of the PDP. The party said it stands by the letter it earlier sent to the speaker.
The suspension
The PDP went ahead to suspend Ndudi Elumelu and the six other members of the party affected for “indiscipline, insubordination and disobedience”.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, told reporters at a press conference in Abuja that the suspension was the outcome of the meeting of the PDP National Working Committee over the crisis that resulted from the struggle for the House of Representatives Minority Leader. Ologbondiyan, who read the resolution of the NWC, said the committee reviewed the issues affecting the minority leadership of the House of Representatives. He said the party noted the roles played by the affected Reps which resulted in the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, announcing the list of the minority leadership of the House different from the one submitted by the opposition party.
The PDP NWC invited the seven Reps to a meeting prior the suspension but none of them turned up for the meeting. Elumelu’s aide, Sam Audu, in a letter to the PDP Secretary, Senator Umaru Tsauri, acknowledged the receipt of the invitation letter. He said the affected lawmakers were out of Abuja. “In the view of the above, Elumelu and other members invited are requesting that the meeting should be rescheduled.”
The PDP committee of former senate presidents
The Speaker however maintained his stand to go along with its choice of members for the positions. The PDP thereafter set up to review and investigate why its lawmakers voted for Lawan, Gbajabiamila. The investigative committee was saddled with instigating the voting pattern of its lawmakers during the 9th National Assembly leadership election in June. The party’s national chairman, Uche Secondus, who inaugurated the committee in Abuja, said that the committee had three weeks to submit its report. Secondus, represented by the party’s Deputy National Secretary (South), Yomi Akinwonmi, said that the 10-member committee would be chaired by a former senator, Adolphus Wabara. Other members of the committee include Wale Oladipo as Secretary, Ben Obi, Yohana Iliya, Ibrahim Mantu, Austin Opara, Stella Omu, Margret Icheen, Hassan Hyatt and Abdul Ningi. Mr Secondus said that the action of the party is a display of internal democracy, saying “this is the advantage PDP has over other political parties in Nigeria. He also expressed optimism that the committee would work for the actualisation of the terms of reference with the intent of defending and moving the party forward.
PDP Elumelu’s grilling
Members of the PDP committee chaired by a former Senate President, Senator Iyorchia Ayu, set up by the party’s Board of Trustees on the issue later grilled the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Mr Ndudi Elumelu, and the other PDP members of the House of Representatives who were suspended by the party’s National Working Committee over the House minority leadership crisis. Many other Reps who were not suspended also attended the session in solidarity with Elumelu and other suspended members. It was observed that no fewer than 50 Reps who came in three buses and 17 private cars attended the session at the Abuja residence of Ayu.
Ayu later told journalists that the elders of the party were looking into the matter, adding that it was a family affair. Other members of the Ayu committee present were a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara (Secretary); a former Senate President, Senator David Mark; another former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara; and a former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu. One of the suspended members who pleaded not to be named said they would avoid crisis in the party, adding that they had already taken a decision. He said, “We have met and decided that whatever decision that would be reached would not cause crisis in the party.”
Saraki, Clark’s intervention
While the crisis rages, the party had further consulted with other top leaders of the party like immediately past Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki while a chieftain of party, chief Edwin Clark called for truce in the tussle surrounding the emergence of minority leadership in the House of Representatives.
Details of Saraki’s meeting with some of the party leaders in his Abuja residence were not made public but it is believed that it was on the National Assembly crisis to sought his input as former senate president.
According to Clark, the PDP should face issues of national interests and allow peace to reign in the 9th Assembly. Clark in an interview with newsmen on Sunday in Abuja said that the tussle was unnecessary, advising the PDP to accept the Ndudi Elumelu as announced by the Speaker of the House Assembly, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila.
“PDP should play the role of opposition effectively in those areas and leave this matter. It is done. If the Speaker has already announced that this is the minority leader now there is nothing anyone can do. Otherwise, you want to create problem in the House which should not be. I am advising the PDP leadership that now that they have suspended them for a month, that may be enough sanction. Allow what has happened in the House to go on. They are all members of the PDP,” he said.
Clark urged that democracy should be allowed to prevail and institutions should be allowed to do their jobs in the country.
The elder statesman said that there was no place even in the PDP constitution which says it should nominate people and forward to the House, saying “the National Assembly has its rules and regulations.
He went further that, “Rule 8 of the NASS, I think, says that elected members of the House whether they are majority or minority should sit among themselves and elect their members.
“They did not say that one political party should nominate people for the chairman or secretary to come and submit to NASS. I don’t think there is anything like that. But the party has to be in the know, I agree. But the whole thing that happen, we should be thinking about major things.”
He said that the PDP established the precedent in the 7th NASS when the speakership position was zoned to the South West, and Aminu Tambuwal, North West contested and won, against the wish of the party.
Editorial position
In one of its editorial, ThisDay newspaper, noted that “at a period the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is in dire need of cohesion, the furore created by the emergence of minority leaders in the House of Representatives is needless.
It said to the extent that the ability of the opposition to challenge the ruling party is integral to representative democracy, the PDP leadership is urged to put aside whatever personal interests they may have in the aspiration of certain candidates in the House of Representatives and rally behind their members that have been elected into minority leadership positions.
The paper added that this certainly is no time for combative actions that are capable of bringing the party into another round of crisis and further held that it is important for the PDP to learn lessons from its own experience.
“Just a few years ago, the party controlled more than 60 per cent of the National Assembly membership as well as no fewer than 23 of the 36 states of the federation. Unfortunately, the PDP got enmeshed in a self-inflicted crisis arising from the virtual overthrow of its constitution by a succession of self-serving leaders. It is therefore in the interest of our democracy that critical stakeholders who still command respect within the party to move in and resolve the issue of the House minority leadership so that the PDP can move ahead as a strong opposition platform.
“Section 60 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended specifically provides that “subject to the provisions of this constitution, the Senate or the House of Representatives shall have power to regulate its own procedure, including the procedure for summoning and recess of the House.”
“Drawing from this constitutional provision, the Senate and the House of Representatives have made rules governing their procedures in the form of Standing Rules. In the specific case of the House of Representatives, Order seven, Rule eight of its standing rules provides: “Members of the minority parties in the House shall nominate from among them, the minority leader, minority whip, deputy header and deputy whip.”
“These provisions on the power of the National Assembly and the emergence of minority leaders are clear and precise enough and have no room for external interference. The role of political parties in this exercise is usually very discreet and behind the scene in order not to give an impression of undue interference in the internal processes of the legislature.
