By Nwobodo Chidiebere

“Bipartisanship helps to avoid extremes and imbalances. It causes compromises and accommodation. So, let’s cooperate.  —   Zbigniew Brzezinski 

It is getting to two consecutive years now that the Nigerian Senate independently elected its bipartisan leadership on 9th July, 2015. Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and his deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, came from two different political parties – the APC and the PDP, respectively. In an unprecedented stroke, the Red Chamber was bequeathed with leadership that has different political affinity but similar ideology. This bipartisan synergy has enthroned trust, confidence and stability in the Senate. It has enabled Senators to ward-off anti-democratic, divisive forces which always cash in on the partisan polarity in the Upper Chamber to exert external control.

Time, they say, is the greatest healer of all wounds and teacher of lessons. In less than two legislative years, those who hitherto rejected and raised dust as regards bipartisan Senate leadership, have not only discovered its imperativeness, but its indispensability, especially at this political juncture—where the ruling APC needs support of the opposition, the PDP in the Red Chamber to get important bills passed and appointments confirmed. Election of Sen. Ike Ekweremadu as deputy senate president, which some stakeholders in the APC saw as a setback, has finally turned out to be a huge blessing to the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.

If not for the emergence of Sen. Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President of 8th Senate—which gave the PDP Senators a sense of belonging in the Senate and created a bridge amongst Senate leaders, the PDP Senators could have been more averse to playing ‘real’ opposition politics in the Senate; going by its strength, which could have been detrimental to the smooth running of governmental activities, as pertains to cooperation of National Assembly.

In the foregoing context, taking into cognizance that the APC does not have over-riding majority in the Senate, an unfriendly opposition PDP would have created a political quagmire in the Senate—especially when important and national decisions were to be made.

This is in affirmation of the thought-provoking words of Zbigniew Brzezinski that: “Bipartisanship helps to avoid extremes and imbalances. It causes compromises and accommodation. So, let’s cooperate”. The spirit of bipartisanship infused in the Senate via the emergence of Sen. Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President, for the third time, has eroded every extreme tendency on the side of the PDP Senators. They view every debate in the upper chamber with bipartisan goggles. It is easier to reach compromises and accommodate dissenting opinions in a Senate bipartisan leadership, with a belief system that once a PDP man is there as deputy senate president, the primary interests of the two leading parties will be adequately protected, thereby ensuring tranquility.

Related News

The botched forgery trial of Senate leaders was specifically targeted at the bipartisan chord of its leadership. It was instigated to break the bond of bipartisanship in the Senate headship, and in turn, weaken hard-earned unity and independence of the red chamber. In fact, majority of the Senators were able to unite in strong support of Senate leadership, throughout the course of the wild goose chase, masqueraded as forgery trial because of the bipartisan composition of the leadership of the upper chamber—which united senators across party lines.  It ensured an undivided Senate while the turbulence of forgery trial lasted. I can authoritatively assert that the formidable strength of the 8th Senate lies in its bipartisan leadership, as epitomized in the Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu—who I personally refer to, as the pillar of 8th Senate—Ike Senate (strength of Senate).

Some political pundits had argued that tyrannical forces that sponsored the persecution of the Senate leadership via the Senate forgery trial would not have gone to that extent, if an APC Senator was elected as deputy senate president, instead of Sen. Ike Ekweremadu. What proponents of this line of thought failed or pretended not to understand, is that an all APC-led Senate leadership would have perforated the bipartisan loyalty being enjoyed by current leadership, which would have made it possible for anti-Saraki elements in the APC to climb on the back of supposed, willing Senators of the opposition, PDP to unseat the Senate President But the resurrection of Sen. Ike Ekweremadu as deputy senate president of 8th Senate cemented Senate President Bukola Saraki’s unalloyed alliance with the PDP, thereby making it practically and constitutionally impossible to remove him via impeachment.

Grand wisdom and political wizardry being deployed by the Senate President Bukola Saraki in running the affairs of the Senate vis-à-vis unflagging loyalty cum experience and support of his second-in-command, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, are behind the great successes and landmark achievements recorded so far by 8th Senate, against permutations of pessimists. Cordial relationship founded on trust and mutual respect, existing between these two most senior presiding officers of Senate, made bipartisan leadership arrangement of the red chamber a success worthy of celebration. Those who are conversant with the political trajectory of Senator Ike Ekweremadu are not in doubt of his history of unalloyed and un-negotiated loyalty to his former and present bosses, starting from his earlier days in Enugu politics.

The executive arm of government has lots of lessons to learn from the workability and benefits of the bipartisan leadership of the 8th Senate, as a yardstick of true democracy.  Leaders can form synergy to work for the development of the nation, irrespective of political party affiliations. Bipartisan Senate leadership has proved that a difference in political parties or ideologies does not translate to arch enmity.

Nothing stops President Buhari from bringing into his cabinet, tested and proven economic experts, irrespective of their political inclinations, to salvage Nigeria’s stagnated economy.  If bipartisan cooperative governance worked (still working) in Senate, it will thrive in the Federal Executive Council (FEC), if given an opportunity. No section or sub-section of the constitution prevents the president from engaging the services of professionals outside his party to manage strategic sectors of the government, if the APC has become bankrupt of square-pegs-in-square-holes technocrats.

Chidiebere writes from Abuja