It is tragic that those who are expected to play a stabilising role in our polity have turned themselves into malignant sores on our political landscape.
How can anyone who has held a position of privilege and responsibility in this country, publicly applaud a brazen act of rebellion against constituted authorities, as displayed in the election of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal as the Speaker, and Emeka Ihedioha as Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday, June 6, 2011?
What happened on Monday was not a case of democracy at work as misperceived and misrepresented by ignorant commentators and mischievous congratulators. The Office of Speaker of the House of Representatives was zoned by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the South West Zone.
This was in line with the zoning principle, enshrined in section 7:2c of the party’s constitution. With a clear majority in the House (207 out of 360), the choice of the party was expected to be adopted by the House, as it was done in the Senate and, indeed, in previous elections in the National Assembly, since 1999. This tradition has served the party very well and can be said to be a major factor in making it the robust national institution that it is today; arguably, the only national party in Nigeria.
It is important to note that the PDP’s zoning principle was the product of democratic decision-making before it was encoded in its constitution.
Consequently, the expectation is that members of the party, particularly, those who voluntarily choose to vie for public offices on its platform, are logically bound by this principle. This does not, of course, vitiate the right of any member to question this principle or any article of the PDP constitution. However, such questioning does not confer the right of rejection. Any article of the constitution remains valid until it is either amended or abrogated.
The PDP members of the House of Representatives who voted against the position of the party on zoning were exercising a right which they did not have – the right to reject the provision on zoning. Neither can they be said to be democrats, as they are a minority in relation to the larger PDP family which had, democratically, taken a decision on the matter.
The refrain of the PDP members is that zoning is dead which, they assumed, gave them the freedom to trample upon it. But, as their elections into the presiding officers’ positions of the House clearly demonstrated, zoning is alive and well. Surely, therefore, the issue at stake on Monday (June 6, 2011) was not zoning but the principle of rotation of the Office of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The extremist elements in the party who had refused to reconcile themselves with the wise compromise adopted by the PDP on the candidacy of President Jonathan, allied with opportunists and a majority of opposition members to scuttle the zoning formula.
In this congregation of infamy, the members of the party from the South East zone stand out for their opportunism. Having agitated and failed to get the Office of the Speaker zoned to them, they resorted to conspiracy and subversion. They conspired with the Northern extremists to wreak vengeance on the Party for its position on President Jonathan.
It is an irony, worthy of the utmost condemnation, that the South East members, whose people voted overwhelmingly for President Jonathan, could use his candidacy as the ground for revolt.
The ugly scenario which confronts us in the face is that the North West zone now has the position of Vice President and Speaker while the South East zone has the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Deputy Senate President and Deputy Speaker; the North East zone is slated to produce the National Chairman while the South West zone would have no position. If the North West zone were to suffer the fate of the South West, there would, probably have been rioting by now in the major cities of the zone. As for the South East, the air would have been fouled up by cries of marginalisation.
These are the kinds of negative and destabilizing reactions which the PDP anticipated and provided for in its zoning principle. Rather than being an overbearing actor, a political party performs a moderating and regulatory role. It enables its members to operate and interact in a democratic milieu in an orderly fashion. This is the role that the PDP has played, so effectively, in the last 12 years, with nation-building, equity and stability of the country as its primary focus.
In the American system, which we practise here in Nigeria, and the parliamentary system of Britain, Germany and most Scandinavian countries, the ruling party often nominates the leadership of the House. These nominations are mostly done outside the chambers of the House. Nominations are often tied up before they come to the House, in which case, the House serves only a ratifying role.
It is, therefore, not true to see the PDP’s quest for equity, as enshrined in its zoning principle and practicalized in its zoning formula, as a threat to democracy. Rather, the threat to our democracy, and even our national security, comes from all those who hide in the ambit of democracy to undermine the platform that brought them into power.
The members of the House of Representatives must make restitution for the betrayal of June 6, 2011. Fortunately, the Speaker has publicly asked for forgiveness on behalf of his co-conspirators for the disorder they have brought to their own party.
They need to do more than that. The Speaker and the Deputy Speaker elected along with him should resign now to enable the party to re-establish the order, purpose and nobility of its zoning formula.
