POLITICS A GAME OF CONCESSION: HOW SEN. SARAKI DIGS HIS GRAVE!
POLITICS A GAME OF CONCESSION: HOW SEN. SARAKI DIGS HIS GRAVE!
By:
Nurudeen Dauda
April 20, 2016
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If you go into any “political horse trading” you don’t expect to get 100% of what you want. Politics is a game of “consensus building”. Sound political judgment requires “political trade- off”. "Concession” is a good virtue in politics.
Which-hunting or politically motivated trial, what is “important”, in my humble opinion, is whether a “crime” has been committed or not. The inability of Senate President Abubakar Bukola Saraki to make some “concession” having smuggled his way into the Senate Presidency against his party’s wish, in my view, marks the begining of his “political travails” but this is not to say whether he is guilty as charge or not.
Fortunately or unfortunately to him the president refused to intervene in the elections of the leadership of national assembly; many people have wanted the president to intervene; the president has since made his position very clear that he would not intervene on any case which is before any court of laws or the Court of Conduct Tribunal. Only time shall tell whether Saraki will survive it!
Ahead of the elections for the Senate Presidency APC had its preferred candidates for the Senate Presidency/Deputy in the names of Senators Ahmed Lawan and Gorge Akume while all the APC’s leaders and their majority “senators’ elects” were at the “International Conference Centre (ICC) to discuss and agree on the leadership of the Senate, Bukola Saraki with about seven (7) other rebel APC “senators’ elects” stayed back from the meeting.
Senator Saraki having struck a deal with the then 49 opposition senators went to the senate chambers where the Senate Clark was rightly there in the chambers. The APC’s leaders and “senators’ elects” while purportedly waiting for the president’s arrival in order to discuss the matter they suddenly saw from the TV screen of ICC when Sakari was about to be sworn in. They all rushed back to the Senate chambers. The election of Saraki as the senate president was done in the absence of all the “loyal” APC’s “senators’ elects” who were about 51 then.
APC won 60 senators but Senator Ahmed Zanna died before the senate leadership inguaration making them 59. Out of the APC senators elects 8 of those senators were with senator Saraki. It is clear that, even if all the loyal APC’s senators were present, “all things being equal” Saraki would still have won.
However, the opposition PDP had a deal with senator Saraki, the PDP’s bargaining Chief then was for Ike Ikweremadu to be deputy senate president which they got.
After the Saraki’s “master stroke” against his party, the party was pacified to forgive both Saraki and Dogara for defying its instructions. APC as a party agreed to forgive both of them with the conditions that all the remaining “Principals Officers” be appointed from its preferred candidates of which a list was given to them by the party.
In my understanding, had Saraki agreed to appoint the APC’s preferred candidates for the position of “Senate Leader” and Majority Chief Whiff and their deputies the situation would not have gotten out of hand. Yakubu Dogara whose election as the speaker appeared to be more legitimate, because it was won fair and square while everybody was there appeared to concede more compare to Saraki . Speaker Dogara not withstanding made so many “concessions” as he agreed to appoint his arch-rival as the “House leader” as well as all the APC’s preferred candidates.
Sakari's disobedience to his party was a clear case of a “father” who instructs his two “sons’ in an “open market square” before his friends and relations to do something, but the sons refused to act on the instructions, however, after acting on their “wishes” the father’s friends and relations begged him on behalf of the two “sons” and the father agreed to forgive them meanwhile the father gave them another instruction; fortunately, for one of the “sons” he acted on the instruction of the “father” while the other disobeyed the father again.
Speaker Yakubu Dogara had made a lot of “concessions”, in my view, he either has good advisers or he always uses his ability to reason well. Senator Sakari, in my opinion, he either lacks good advisers or he has decided to ignore one of the most essential ingredients of politics called “concession”.
While Speaker Dogara appointed all the officers given to him, Senate president Saraki threw away the list given to him by his party and appointed his “loyalists”. While Dogara refused to buy “official cars” for the office of the speaker heeding to the advice of President Buhari, Obasanjo and other well meaning Nigerians Saraki, on the other hand, bought cars of N330 million for his office against all odds. While Sakari’s Senate declared their budget missing Dogara said theirs was intact.
More so, when the senate said the executive should submit supplementary budget for the missing items in the final details of the 2016 budget, the House of representatives under Dogara said they would re-examining the missing items with a view of correcting them. While Senate under saraki ordered for the purchase of 108 cars after collecting money for car loans very disturbing for Dogara’s Resp they have also ordered for same.
Had Saraki made some concessions the people that were alleged to have caused his travails would not have probably gone to that extent. The Saraki’s saga, in my view, is responsible for the forth and back in the issues of our national budget. “Proxies political wars” are being fought left, right and centre.“High wired politics” has been responsible for the delay in the budget approval. It is very unfortunate that, in Nigeria immediately after every general election instead of concentrating on delivering democratic dividend to general public, politicians begin campaign for the next election. In my view, there should be time for elections and time for governance!
May God save us!