Cracks within the ranks of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senate Caucus emerged on Tuesday as the immediate past Senate Majority Leader, Ali Ndume, faulted the party’s endorsement of Ahmed Lawan as Senate President in the Ninth Assembly.
Ndume, the senator representing Borno South, said the right to elect presiding officers in the National Assembly rests with the senators-elect and not with a political party.
The APC lawmaker who has indicated interest to run for the office of the president of the Senate in the Ninth Assembly, cited Section 50 (1) (a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to buttress his argument.
The section stipulates that “there shall be a President and Deputy President of the Senate who shall be elected by the members of that house from among themselves”.
This is even as the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said it would field candidates for the positions of presiding officers in both chambers in the incoming National Assembly, arguing that its members have the constitutional right to contest such positions when the Assembly is inaugurated in June.
In a statement on Tuesday, Kola Ologbondiyan, PDP national publicity secretary, cited section 50 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), noting that the positions of the Senate president, speaker of the House of Representatives, deputy Senate president and deputy speaker are not the exclusive preserves of any political party, but a constitutional right of every elected lawmaker in both chambers.
Recall that the APC was in 2015 rocked with controversies surrounding the party’s choice of both the Senate president and the speaker of the House of Representative that saw Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara defy the party’s endorsements.
The APC had earlier tipped Femi Gbajabiamila as the speaker of the House of Representatives and Ahmed Lawan as the president of the Senate.
Saraki, however, clinched the Senate president position after he shunned a caucus meeting called by President Muhammadu Buhari to resolve the dispute in the party. Saraki was made Senate president after garnering the block support of the PDP and some APC senators who broke ranks with their party.
In a similar vein, PDP members of the House of Representatives threw their block votes behind Yakubu Dogara, selecting him as speaker over the APC-endorsed Gbajabiamila.
To avoid the repeat of history, APC National Working Committee (NWC) Monday met with the party’s caucus in the House of Representatives at the Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, where it was resolved that all members must back only candidates endorsed by the party leadership.
APC senator-elect Lawan has been endorsed by the party for the position of president of the Ninth Senate, along with Femi Gbajabiamila as speaker of the incoming House of Representatives. President Buhari was said to have given his nod on the matter.
However, Ndume submitted that the decision was taken without consultations with APC senators-elect.
Election of principal officers in the National Assembly will be held in June this year upon issuance of a proclamation by President Buhari.
“What took place at the presidential dinner in Aso Rock on Monday night where Oshiomhole as party chairman announced Senator Ahmed Lawan and Hon Femi Gbajabiamila as president of the 9th Senate and speaker of the House of Representatives, respectively, was very shocking to me and many of my colleagues,” Ndume said on the matter.
“Oshiomhole in making the announcement or endorsement did not even allow myself or Senators Danjuma Goje (Gombe Central) and Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa West), widely known to be in the race for the position, to say anything. More disturbing was the fact that even Senator Ahmed Lawan endorsed for the position was not allowed to make any comment in form of acceptance speech or soliciting for supports from other interested senators,” he said.
Making reference to the 2015 experience where APC lawmakers endorsed by the party failed to emerge as presiding officers, Ndume, who traced the history of the leadership crisis in the Senate to imposition of presiding officers, expressed regret that the party was yet to learn from its past mistakes.
“Under PDP, it happened with the imposition of Evans Enwerem and Adolphus Wabara as Senate President at different times and also with Patricia Etteh as Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007 before the party eventually got it right in the 6th and 7th National Assembly, particularly in the Senate when Senator David Mark served twice as president of the Senate through support in form of votes given to him by fellow senators and not endorsement by party chairman,” he said.
“For the sake of cohesion and stability among party members as regards aspirations for such positions, what was expected from the party leadership was to just zone the positions and allow contenders within each of the zones to sort it out either through consensus or shadow election. The 109 elected senators and 360 House of Representatives members are the constitutional kingmakers as far as emergence of presiding officers of both chambers are concerned and not national chairman of a ruling party or even the president,” he added.
He, however, declared that his loyalty to the party, and in particular President Buhari, has not been affected by the unilateral decision of Oshiomhole on Monday night.
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja, & MICHEAL ANI
