Even before he presented his proposals for the amendment of the Constitution to the National Assembly, there was unanimity of opinion that the urgent requirement to amend the electoral law and the Constitution opened a window of opportunity to the President to tinker with processes leading to elections which did not seem to favour him as a candidate.
Reports have it that the initial delay in the President’s assent to the bill was because he wanted the four-week signature period to lapse, meaning an effective vote. Pressure upon him by the Euro-American partnership superintending the 2011 elections forced him to sign on to the law.
Those who have closely been monitoring the unfolding drama in the National Assembly say that the President is determined to have his way this time around. He is bent on changing the major features of the law, to wit the restoration of unelected government appointees as convention delegates; to move the party congresses from the states to the safety of Abuja since the President, having offended the Northerners by his illegal and immoral desire to run knows that he cannot campaign for support in the primaries in these states and to, if they can, snatch the voting power from the rank-and-file membership of the party and vesting same in the hands of party caucuses.
According to these reports, the members of the National Assembly have responded to the President’s selfish demands by putting down on the table, their own greedy requests: they want automatic return tickets for all members so that together with Jonathan, they can continue their overlordship and enslavement of their fellow countrymen. Given the desperation to cling to power in the presidency; the imminence of political chaos in the country and the matchless internal contradictions within the ruling PDP now at their crescendo, many say they believe the automatic ticket may be conceded by the President and possibly the Party.
History and conventional wisdom however are not, and will not be on the side of the National Assembly should they swallow this bait.
Shortly before the elections in 2003, the Obasanjo government brought pressure on the National Assembly to approve three key legislations with the promise that each and every one of the PDP members would gain an automatic return ticket. The opposition ANPP members were given the same assurances and surprisingly, they too fell for it. In line with that agreement, the budget for the year 2003, the electoral law and the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC law were all passed without further ado.
In the elections that followed, not only were the members denied the return tickets as promised, between 80 and 90 percent of the membership did not make it back to the House and the Senate.
What happened in the 2007 elections was even more instructive for the present day legislators. In 2005 and 2006, leaders of the National Assembly such as Ibrahim Mantu and Austin Opara were not only instrumental to the failed third term aspiration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, they, it was alleged, were funnels used in the massive bribery schemes that characterised the pursuit of the subversive political agenda of the regime. A certain Hon. Bako Sarai from Kano state wore uniforms that carried Obasanjo pictures and praises and at a certatin point, he sponsored full-page newspaper advertorials abusing Northern Nigerian political leaders simply because such leaders did not buy into their treasonable pro-Obasanjo advocacy. Despite the strenuous way they labored for the government and party against the interests of their peoples, these leaders failed to get the reward of the return ticket they were individually and collectively assured of. Austin Opara was promised the Governorship of Rivers state. Today he is unemployed. Without a Senate seat and visible means to a decent livelihood, Mantu is back on the same old beat working for the Jonathan-Obasanjo-Sambo ticket. As for Bako Sarai, I am not sure they would recognise him when they see him; I am talking about those NTA reporters who glamourised the advocates of Obasanjo’s third term. He is probably back there in his village tending cattle. Outside the parliament, that is in the executive arm of government, the Vice-President at that time, Atiku Abubakar was accused of a plot to violently overthrow his own government. His saving grace was that the ridiculous charge did not stick but the Director-General of his Presidential Campaign organisation Dr. Iyorchia Ayu and a number of other senior supporters were charged with the political offence of treason. For the three-and-a-half years that they were undergoing trial, they were denied the use of their passports so they were tied down at home more or less as prisoners.
Wise men say that the one who was once bitten by a snake would run away if he encounters a rope in the dark. National Assembly beware!
Chile achieves greatness
The mesmerising 68-day human drama involving 33 trapped Chilean miners comes to a triumphant end beginning in the early hours of today.
The miners were trapped 2,000ft under the earth maintaining a link to the outside world through a narrow tube used to supply them food and water. By yesterday, they had been supplied shampoo and new clothes as efforts were being finalised to start extricating them.
The drama involved in their survival and incredible rescue has been brought to living rooms all around the world through television pictures.
The remarkable story of their rescue has brought attention, and now pride to the little-noticed Latin America nation. Before now, Chile has only been known for producing General Allende, one of the world’s most brutal dictators; their successful national soccer team and the fame brought home by the pop singer Shakira. (Washington says Shakira is Chilean, Google says she is Columbian).
This tale of fortitude, grit and the ingenuity of the Chilean authorities in their rescue of the trapped miners should increase the fame, pride and fortune of the country and its people. And to think that back at home here, we just lost 14 innocent citizens, and still counting because the authorities missed out on very detailed, serially and timely warnings of bomb plantings by the terrorist organisation, MEND. Huh!
This story is hypothetical. Seven years ago, a Deputy Governor of a prosperous state in Southern Nigeria asked to see the Minister of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. He made a confession that both he and his wife, who had accompanied him on this appointment, did not have “an inch of land anywhere in Nigeria”. They asked to be given plots of land.
The BBC Reporter anchoring the early evening program, “Focus on Africa”, Robin White now retired was a delight to listen to. He had a way of asking his often insightful and probing questions in a cynical way that destabilised his guests. As a consequence, many of them ended up ridiculing themselves on air.
The high ground occupied by the Saraki family in Kwara state politics in thirty years appearx now set crumble. The patriarch of the Saraki family, Dr. Olusola Saraki stirred the hornet's nest within the intrigue-ridden politics of the North-Central state when he controversially nominated yet another child of his, this time a female Senator, Gbemi Saraki, as the heir-apparent of the governor's chair.
All doomsday statistics are meant to scare the pants off the run of the mill administrators but if they don’t take these ones seriously, we are all dead.
