Ayorinde Oluokun/Abuja

Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate President, is confronted with the onerous task of serving in a government not controlled by his party, Peoples Democratic Party, as the pressure to get him to vacate the seat gathers steam

Ike, the short version of Ikechukwu, the popular first name of Nigeria’s Deputy Senate President, means power. The three letter name may well symbolize the adventures of Ike Ekweremadu in the Nigerian power loop since he first launched into national politics with his election as a Senator in 2003. But looking at the way he emerged the Deputy Senate President against all expectations on 9 June, supporters of Ekweremadu, especially those who are religious, will likely argue that there is some divine forces at play in the life of the legal practitioner turned politician as implied in the full version of his first name which literarily means God’s power.

True, unlike during his two previous outing as Deputy Senate President, Ekweremadu will this time around need all the divine help he can muster to ride out the storm generated by his emergence as the number two man in a Senate dominated by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). Indeed, as stalwarts of APC led by President Muhammadu Buhari met late last week to discuss how to end the crisis over sharing of National Assembly positions which is threatening to tear the ruling party into shreds less than two months after assumption of office, Ekweremadu was one of the major talking points.

John Oyegun, APC national chairman, recently told journalists that the resignation of Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President will be a major step to ending the crisis the party has fallen into as a result of rebellion against it by its members who refused to accept its suggestions on the candidates for the principal offices of the National Assembly. “If he (Ekweremadu) wants to resign, we would be very, very glad…,” said Oyegun who noted that Ekweremadu’s election as the Deputy Senate President is an aggravation of the crises afflicting the party.

While the leadership of APC may regard him as an usurper, the leaders and members of PDP, on whose platform the Enugu State Senator was elected into the Senate, certainly believ that there is absolutely no legal impediments to Ekweremadu’s occupation of the position. The Senator himself has barely weaned himself of the celebrations of the good fortune of emerging the Deputy Senate President for the third time even when democratic practice dictates that the massive defeat suffered by his political party in the 2015 general elections foreclosed such possibility.

The Senator had tried to justify his emergence as the Deputy Senate President with the bogey that it was meant to ensure that South East, the region he came from was not “marginalised” in the new APC government led by Buhari. “My dear people, I would like to assure you that what we have is a constitutional democracy. Nobody will deny us our rights… In fact, that was why when we saw that it appeared that South-East and South-South were being marginalised in the scheme of things, we decided to take a shot so that our people will be part and parcel of government so that every part of Nigeria will have a sense of belonging,” a triumphant Ekweremadu had said at a reception organised for him in Enugu a few days after his election on 9 June.

True, the results of the 2015 general elections, especially the 28 March, 2015 presidential and national assembly polls had put the South east zone and the south-south zone at a disadvantage in the normal order of sharing of top political offices among the six geo-political zones in the country. The APC won the presidential as well as the majority in both chambers of the National Assembly, though not with overwhelming dominance.

While people in the other four regions were voting for APC in the presidential and national assembly elections, the South-east and the South-south chose to stick to PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan, its presidential candidate. At the end of the National Assembly elections, the APC was able to secure 60 seats in the National Assembly, thus ending PDP’s 16-year leadership of the National Assembly. To gain the majority in the Senate, the APC had won 13 out of 18 seats in the Southwest, 20 out of the 21 seats in the Northwest, 13 senatorial seats in the Northeast with the same massive win in the Northcentral states. The results followed the pattern of the presidential elections as Buhari, the APC presidential candidate, also won massively in the four regions.

On the contrary, the APC did not win any senatorial seat in the Southeast as all the 15 seats in the zone made up of Anambra, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and Imo were won by the PDP candidates while APC was able to win two seats in the House of Representatives. With the election of Buhari, who is from the Northwest and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo from the Southwest zone, the Southeast, the third of the tripods on which Nigeria stands, was expected to produce either the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives. But this was no longer possible following the outcome of the National Assembly election.

Senator Chris Ngige, a former Governor and a ranking senator from Anambra State who many had touted as a possible candidate for the position of the Senate President, was defeated by Uche Ekwunife, the PDP candidate in the National Assembly election. There were initial rumours that Ekweremadu, who was deputy senate president was contemplating defecting to APC to become the Senate President to ensure that the South East is represented in the top echelon of the federal government immediately after the election. But the Deputy Senate President promptly dismissed the rumours.