The 8th Senate of the National Assembly has just kicked off
amidst controversy over choice of leadership and manner of its emergence. How
would you assess the immediate past 7th Senate of which you were the majority
leader vis a vis it’s role in stabilizing the nation’s democracy?
Well, l feel very humbled that l was a part of the Senate
that was scandal free as a Nigeria political institution. That was a major
achievement for me. I am also grateful that l worked with colleagues who gave
their support to me as the majority leader of that Senate. And l feel fulfilled
and contented that it was during my time that we achieved the kind of stability
we recorded in the 7th Senate. For the newly inaugurated 8th Senate, they are
still young in their tenure aNdoma-Egband therefore need to be given the chance
and support to stabilize and work for the nation.
How would you describe your experience in the Senate in the
past twelve years as a lawmaker. What are your moments of joy and regret?
I feel quite elated that l was part of the democratic
institution that nurtured our democracy to maturity despite the very serious
hemorrhage in our institutional memory. If you look at our historical
challenges and experiences so far in our quest to build an enduring democracy
after many years of military rule, you will discover that the parliament is the
youngest of all the three arms of government. It presupposes that it requires
some period of time to stabilize which the 7th Senate was able to do. You will
also agree with me that it is this stability and probity that made it possible
for the party in government to lose to the party in opposition in the
just-concluded election. So in the 16 years of our present democracy, 12 of
which l was a participant, we have seen a president handing over to another
president and a president being handed over to. We also saw our democracy
survive very stressful moments as a result of a sitting President’s ailment. In
the same period, we saw an acting President become a president and so on. So really
saw it all. That’s why l said l was part of history. But it is a thing of
regret that the parliament is losing a large number of its experienced
lawmakers after every election. It is this institutional memory that preserves,
stabilizes and enhances the legislative efficiency of the parliament. Also, one
dream that l had which unfortunately, l could not realize due to my exit, is to
archive all our political milestones from 1960 to the present era.
Talking about stabilizing the Senate, how were you able to
manage the different tendencies as Senate leader to achieve the kind of
relative cohesion that existed during your period in the upper chamber of the
parliament?
Well, l think first and foremost, it is the Grace of God and
then through the help of the Senate leadership under the former Senate
President, Senator David Mark and other members of the leadership and my
colleagues as well. Again, l think it just had to do with chemistry. There are
certain people you just naturally flow with and we just blended. It was as if
we have known ourselves for years. Fortunately, l have known Senator David Mark
since 1978, although we got closer when we came together in the Senate. For the
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, we met for the first time in 2003,
when we came to the Senate. We got on very well and that was the chemistry l
was talking about. Another thing is that we were very open with one another.
Whenever we couldn’t resolve certain issues or we could not take any decision
within the Senate leadership, we will take it to the executive session. We
worked as a team and we could almost vouch for one another. Not for one day did
we undermine one another and there was no struggle to do so.
You have always talked about preserving the institutional memory
of the parliament particularly the National Assembly. What we have had in the
previous elections was a situation where a significant proportion of the
experienced legislators were unable to return. When are we going to have less
fresh men lawmakers populating the parliament after each general elections?
We will get to some point where we will retain as much of
these experienced legislators in the parliament as possible. This will come
when the political parties get their acts together. The loss is more in Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) and that was because the party was appropriated. It was
no longer what the people wanted, it was what the leaders of the party wanted.
They were ready to mangle and manipulate every process to achieve what they
wanted. So the state governors took total control and everybody including the
President were held hostage. The party buckled under the weight of its
overbearing governors and it’s contradictions. If you would remember that after
the party primaries ahead of the last elections, we witnessed a one way traffic
of people from PDP to other parties without a corresponding movement from other
parties to the PDP. Which means that something very wrong was happening in the
PDP and something better was happening in other political parties. Because of
lack of internal democracy in the party, there was no way the institutional
memory of the parliament could be preserved. The good news and the lesson we
have to learn across board is that a second tenure can not be taken for granted.
The second lesson also is that impunity is unsustainable anywhere. The greatest
assurance to electoral success or victory, is the level of your internal
democracy.
At what point did the PDP allow the governors to acquire or
wield the kind of near absolute power and influence they had within the party?
It is a bit difficult to say at what point the governors
acquired such powers…….
Then why was it difficult for the party to control them?
The governors did not only take over at the state level, they
did the same thing at the national level. They simply became overbearing, such
that whatever they wanted, they got. And you know, of course, that the
governors, forum helped them to achieve that. My own situation in Cross River
state was a typical example. We had congresses and the result was okay. I was
able to secure a court order to sustain the result of that party congress . A
court order was subsisting. The party also had an appeal process to take care
of those who were dissatisfied with the outcome of that congress. But because
the result of the congress was not favorable to the governor (Liyel Imoke), he
worked for the cancellation of that result, despite the subsisting court order
and the fact that the party has an internal mechanism for appeal. Also, don’t
forget that it is the same governors that dictate who the Councilors, the local
government chairmen, the State Assembly and the National Assembly men are. They
also determine who a state commissioner is and who is appointed into every
board of parastatal and corporation. Intact, they determine who would be made a
minister of the federal republic. So what power is left of the President or the
party itself? Therefore it got to a point that PDP became a party for the
governors and it became a government for the governors.
Credit: Eagle News
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