By Ifeanyi Maduako
Since the present democratic dispensation in 1999, this is the first time the Nigerian Senate has its presiding officers, the Senate President and the Deputy Senate President from two mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed parties; the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The peculiarity of the 8th Senate is that the ruling party that produced the President in the person of Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki does not command an overwhelming majority unlike when the (PDP) held sway.
The senate is composed of 109 senators. PDP was formed in 1998 as a mass movement to push out the military government. It was a conglomeration of different political parties with the sole objective of restoring democracy to Nigeria. The behemoth nature of PDP made it possible that it was able to produce over seventy 70 senators in 1999. It repeated the same feat in 2003, 2007 and 2011.
It had majority of the governors in all states of the Federation. Now, in the Senate, for any ruling party that produces the Senate President to pass any constitutional bill into law, it requires two-third of the entire members voting to sail through.
This also applies to the procedure to remove a presiding officer. PDP was producing and removing Senate Presidents from 1999 to 2007 because it could muster 2/3 of its members to effect that without the support of other minority parties. Senator Saraki, became Senate President in spite of his party’s preference of senator Ahmed Lawan. At the inauguration of the 8th senate on June 6, 2015, the ruling party, APC had about 60 senators and the PDP had about 49 senators.
APC had enough senators to produce the Senate President and even Deputy President but due to intra party squabble it was contending with at the time, it lost the deputy presidency to the PDP when some members chose to attend their party’s meeting instead of senate inauguration. Senator Saraki was able to strike a deal with all the 49 PDP senators with about 8 APC Senators to be elected the Senate President with 57 votes.
His deft political strategy means that even if all the APC senators were present on the 6th of June when they were inaugurated, with 57 votes in his kitty, he would have still won as his opponent (Lawan) would have garnered 52 votes. But, if all the senators were around that day, PDP may not have produced the Deputy Senate President because the 8 APC senators that backed Saraki’s election could have reneged on the agreement they had with PDP to produce the Deputy Senate President immediately after the election of Saraki as Senate President. These 8 APC senators could have joined the remaining 52 other APC members if they were present to produce the Deputy Senate from their own party.
But since their other party members were away, there was nothing these 8 APC senators could have done to stop PDP whose 49 senators were present in electing Senator Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President. Now, it is easier to elect a Senate President or his deputy than to remove any of them.
A simple majority of vote is what is required to elect a presiding officer in a senate of 109 members where two contestants were involved. Saraki required only 55 senators to be elected Senate President.
However, it is not that easy in removing a presiding officer of the senate and the House of Representatives. Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo state, basking in the euphoria of electing an APC senator and the only one from the south-East in the person of Chief Benjamin Uwaumogu, a former Speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly, had boasted that he would do everything possible to remove senator Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President, so that the newly elected senator could occupy that post which he claimed was zoned to the South-East. How realistic is that boast? How feasible?
The present configuration of the members of different political parties in the senate makes this task a Herculean one. APC does not have the number to remove either Saraki or Ekweremadu through impeachment unlike when PDP was in power. That explains the ruling party’s resort to different court cases to oust both of them.Saraki and Ekweremadu are tied by fate to either swim or sink together.If APC government is able to woo some PDP Senators to get the required number of 73 senators to impeach Ekweremadu ,it means Saraki himself has become vulnerable.
In any case, even though APC has about 60 or more senators now, majority of them are in Saraki’s camp and by extension Ekweremadu.APC Senators backing Saraki know that any change of leadership in the Senate will affect them adversely. They would be victimized and stripped off all their committees’ chairmanship. Governor Okorocha or any other person scheming for Ekweremadu’s seat is on a wild goose chase. The logic that APC would make Uwajumogu Deputy Senate President is warped.
APC produced two House of Representatives members from the South-East in 2015 general elections, why didn’t the party chose one of them as Speaker of the House of Representatives? The only leeway APC has to remove Ekweremadu is through this forgery case which is likely to reach the Supreme Court of Nigeria. The Senate forgery case is before a court of competent jurisdiction, and there should be no clandestine move to stampede the judges to pervert justice.
Senator-elect Benjamin Uwajumogu should count himself lucky if he is able to get a vice chairmanship position of any committee whenever he is sworn in. The Senate standing committees have been constituted.
Who is Uwajumogu going to supplant to take his or her chairmanship or vice chairmanship position let alone replacing Ekweremadu to become Deputy Senate president? It is only the gullible that would be deceived by such delusion grandeur.
*Maduako writes from Owerri