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. [caption id="attachment_25168" align="alignnone" width="472"] Ekweremadu, middle, takes the oath on 9 June . Left is Senator Saraki[/caption] 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. [caption id="attachment_26235" align="aligncenter" width="244"] •Oyegun: Would be glad if Ekweremadu quits[/caption] 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. Many commentators had immediately concluded that the Southeast and Southsouth shot themselves in the foot by massively voting for PDP, an action which they said had inadvertently denied the region the position of the Senate presidency. This is in spite of the fact that even with the victory, the APC lacked a two-thirds majority (73 members) needed to take key decisions, thus it will have to depend on the support of PDP for such decisions to sail through in the Senate. And the implications of this became clear as members of APC from the four zones began to jostle for the position of the Senate President and the Speaker of House of Representatives. Of course, the Northwest and the Southwest were automatically excluded from vying for the position of the Senate presidency because the two regions had produced the President and the Vice President respectively. Thus, the contest for the position of Nigeria’s number three man became a slugfest between ranking Senators from Northcentral and Northeast part of the country. Early contenders for the position include Senators Bukola Saraki, George Akume (Northcentral) Ahmed Lawan and Ali Ndume (Northeast) respectively. The conflicting statements from chieftains of APC on whether the party will or will not zone the position to any of the contending zones further encouraged all the four contenders to go all out to canvass support for their ambitions. APC later realized that if all the contenders are allowed to continue the pursuit of their ambition, it risked the possibility of allowing the PDP to unduly influence the choice of the Senate President. [caption id="attachment_26236" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Saraki: The ‘coup’ plotter[/caption] Speculations that Senator David Mark, the former President of the Senate and Ike Ekweremadu, his deputy may spring a surprise by putting themselves forward for election if APC is unable to reach a consensus on the candidates to support for the position also fuelled the party’s fears. The argument was that with block votes of 49 PDP Senators, the opposition party was capable of springing a surprise on the floor of the National Assembly on the day of the proclamation, especially if the candidates of APC split the 59 votes of the 49 PDP Senators among themselves. After all, the Constitution does not specifically stipulate that the principal officers of the National Assembly must emerge from the majority party while PDP also has the number to form the stipulated quorum for the election. Though Mark, in reaction to the speculations emphatically said the PDP will not contest for the position of the Senate President and the Deputy Senate President having lost the leadership of the National Assembly to another party, leaders of APC were not convinced. After appeals to the different contenders to sit down and agree on a consensus candidate failed, the party decided to take the bull by the horn when it forced the contenders to reach a consensus on who to support for the position of the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives during a retreat organised for the lawmakers in Abuja in May. Though the effort failed, it led to realignment of forces among the contenders as Saraki agreed to contest the position of Senate President with Akume as his Deputy while Lawan also agreed to run with Akume under the same arrangement. This arrangement led to the emergence of two strong camps- the “Unity Forum,” made up of supporters of the Lawan/Akume ticket and the “Like Minded Senators” comprising Senators in support of the Saraki/Ndume ambition. With the emergence of the two camps, it became even more difficult for party leaders to broker the idea of consensus candidate to the contenders who were being egged on by their vociferous supporters. But the party intervened again with the straw poll organised for the lawmakers the weekend before the proclamation of the National Assembly. The contentious straw polls resulted in the emergence of Lawan and Akume as the party’s candidates for the office of the Senate presidency and Deputy Senate Presidency while Gbajabiamila and Monguno also emerged as the party’s preferred candidates for the leadership of the House of Representatives. Lawan especially enjoyed the support of most APC Senators. But the camps that lost in the controversial straw polls rejected the result as they either claimed the process was manipulated to favour the successful contenders or that they were not part of the entire arrangement. The losing camp also asked the party to keep off since the President had repeatedly said he was not interested in influencing election of principal officers of the National Assembly. [caption id="attachment_26231" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Gbajabiamila: APC’s choice for Speaker[/caption] Last minute appeal by Oyegun to APC members in the National Assembly to respect the party’s views and the decisions arrived at in the selection of persons that will be presented to the National Assembly as presiding officers fell on deaf ears. It was clear by Monday, 8th June that Saraki and Dogara were bent on defying the party as all entreaties to make them toe the party’s position failed. The two camps boycotted a meeting called by the party which was to be addressed by Vice President Osinbajo. The party then reached out to the President who returned to Nigeria from the G7 meeting on the morning of the proclamation of the 8th session of the National Assembly, urging him to intervene in the situation which was now clearly out of the control of the party leaders. In a counter-strategy, Saraki who perceived that he may not receive the support of the majority of APC Senators had reached out to members of his former party, the PDP, for support. This magazine gathered that 47 PDP Senators gathered on Monday night at the residence of the former Senator Mark. Also present at the meeting was Ekweremadu, members of the PDP National Working Committee and governors elected on the platform of the party. It was at this meeting which Saraki confirmed to have attended in an interview last week that the decision to support Saraki by the opposition lawmakers was reached. Olisa Metuh, the National Publicity Secretary of PDP issued a statement early Tuesday 9 June on the convocation of the National Assembly announced that members of the party will vote for Saraki and Dogara. But in a last-minute attempt to stop the Saraki/PDP plot, the National Publicity Secretary of APC sent out a message that the President would be meeting the APC National Assembly members at the International Conference at 9a.m while a previous letter from Buhari to the Clerk had indicated that the 8th session of the National Assembly will be proclaimed at 10 a.m. the same day. While some APC lawmakers had started arriving at the International Conference Centre for their meeting with Buhari as early as 8 a.m., Saraki had other plans. Instead of heading for the venue of the meeting, the former Kwara State governor, assured of the block votes of the 49 PDP Senators-elect, in addition to the votes of few renegade APC members headed for the National Assembly. Thus, when the Clerk of the National Assembly called for nominations for the post of Senate President, only Saraki’s name was mentioned, thus his unanimous election by 49 PDP senators and seven APC senators. Ekweremadu was sworn in as Deputy President of the Senate, after he polled 54 votes to defeat Senator Ali Ndume who polled 20 votes. Saraki, many APC chieftains had since argued, stabbed the party in the back by reaching an agreement with PDP to allow Ekweremadu emerge as the Deputy Senate President in his desperation to become the Senate President. President Buhari had during his trip to South Africa last month spoken in this vein when he observed that the former Kwara State governor had in his desperation to become the Senate President divided the APC and ceded the position of the deputy senate president to the PDP. “One of the candidates went and got the support of the former ruling party, and he divided our party. That was why the party was not pleased about it. The party ran a primary and the one (Senator Ahmad Lawan) who was competing with Saraki won to become APC’s candidate in the Senate. But then Saraki did not agree with that; he virtually divided the party and he got the support of the PDP and he allowed a PDP senator to become his deputy,” the President said. Senator Dino Melaye, a key supporter of Saraki had, however, insisted that the blame for the loss of the position of Deputy Senate President should be laid at the doorsteps of Senators who headed to International Conference Centre instead of the chambers of the National Assembly on 9, June. The Senator representing Kogi West in the Senate said Ekweremadu won the election for Deputy Senate President because some members of APC did not attend the inauguration. “For you to know that we stood by our party, we nominated Ali Ndume. We, who were in the chambers as at the time of the election, were 20 APC members and we voted for Ndume as at that time.” Saraki who denied having any deal with PDP had parroted this argument in a recent interview while denying that he had any deal with PDP on the matter of election of Ekweremadu. [caption id="attachment_26228" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Dino Melaye: Stauch supporter of Saraki[/caption] The Senate President also stated that he was pained by the emergence of a PDP member as his deputy. “For any APC member, it is unfortunate that we have a PDP man as a Deputy Senate President. It is painful for any APC member. When we went through all the struggles that was not what we signed for,” said the former governor. Still, members of the Unity Forum had continued to explore ways of forcing Ekweremadu out of the seat of Deputy Senate President. In a letter to the leadership of APC on 21 June, the group listed six reasons the election of Ekweremadu as the Deputy President of the Senate is dangerous for the APC-led Federal Government, especially in fulfilment of the promise of the party to Nigerians. Members of the Unity Forum noted in the letter that though by tradition, the Nigerian Senate President is powerful; it is the Deputy Senate President that directly interacts and controls the day to day activities of the Senate. The group noted that the Deputy Senate President may utilise the regular opportunity he gets to preside over the plenary session of Senate when the Senate President may be away attending to other functions to “frustrate the good intentions of “APC” government. The group also noted that the Deputy Senate President could use his position as the chairman of Constitution Review Committee to frustrate necessary and vital constitutional amendments in the course of Buhari’s administration. In the same vein, the Unity group also said in the letter that APC could not afford to leave the task of collecting and supervising the final budget documents in the preparation of the Appropriation Bill which by convention is delegated to the Deputy Senate President to an opposition member, given its importance in the realization of APC manifesto. [caption id="attachment_26227" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Buhari: Nigerians are watching on how he can work with the Saraki-Ekweremadu led Senate[/caption] The group further noted that the Deputy Senate President is statutorily the chairman of the Governing Council of the National Institute of Legislative Studies, NILS, an institution charged with the responsibility of building capacity for legislators and their supporting staff while he also represents the Nigerian Legislature at the ECOWAS Parliament as Speaker. The group said it will be a misnomer for a PDP member to be representing an APC government at the international level. “With the above functions of the Deputy Senate President, we feel extremely concerned about implications of a PDP Senator occupying this exalted position at this time when Nigerians have voted for change,” the group said in the letter. Saraki had also so far resisted attempts by members of the Unity Forum to force Ekweremadu to vacate his seat over arguments that he was not properly elected. Senator Kabiru Marafa, one of the leading supporters of Ahmed Lawan had raised a point of order where he observed that the election of Ekweremadu was in breach of the senate’s standing rules during the plenary of the Senate on 24 June. Marafa noted that senate rules, as passed in 2011 indicate that an election into any of the principal offices in the red chamber shall be by division whereby senators supporting one candidate will be on one side, as those supporting another candidate will be on the other side, and not by secret ballot when two contestants are vying for any of the positions. He argued that the election that brought Ekweremadu into office was contrary to the provisions of the rules and demanded an explanation from the Senate president on when the rules were amended. Saraki swiftly ruled him out of order, while also citing the senate rules that say if a matter on presiding officer’s election has been decided, there can be no further inquiry into it. While President Buhari also recently reportedly reiterated that the election of the PDP member as the Deputy Senate President was unacceptable, the fact is that there is pretty little the APC can do to change the present the leadership of the Senate. For one, with a slight majority of just 59 Senators, the APC did not have the two third majority (73 senate seats) needed to impeach Ekweremadu. The APC cannot even be sure that all its members will buy into such plot. It will certainly not be in the interest of the Senate President who has been at odds with the leadership of APC over his defiance of the party to emerge the Senate President to move against members of PDP who he could now relied on as a backbone. Also, members of PDP in the Senate have vowed that they will resist any attempt to force Ekweremadu out. “The APC senators should stop making such demands, because it is an effort in futility. How do they think that they could ask someone who won an election overwhelmingly among his colleagues to resign in order to satisfy some interests within their party?” queried Abiodun Olujimi a PDP member representing Ekiti-South Senatorial District. [caption id="attachment_26233" align="aligncenter" width="275"] •Olujimi: Ekweremadu can’t be removed[/caption] The PDP Senators said the only recourse open to aggrieved APC senators is to go to court or initiate an impeachment move if they wanted to remove the deputy senate president. But those who said the APC should not be too troubled about the emergence of Ekweremadu pointed out that there are similar situations that had been to the benefit of the party in some states of the country. As pointed out by Segun Adeniyi in his weekly column last week, “in the Benue State House of Assembly where PDP has majority of the members, the APC government in the State, by a sleight of hand, ensured the emergence of Hon. Terkimbi Ikyange (APC member) as Speaker with Hon. James Okefe Ejembi (PDP) as his deputy. The same thing happened in Plateau State where the APC (which won the governorship election) has produced the speaker despite the fact that the PDP has more members in the House of Assembly. He also pointed out that “the audacity of Saraki and Dogara has helped the president to resolve some inherent geopolitical headaches that were waiting to haunt him. It has thrown up a Christian from the ‘Core North’ as Speaker just as it has produced a Deputy Senate President from the South-east at a time when the APC should be worrying about how not to exclude the zone from the national ring.” The challenge, according to him is “for the President is to have the sagacity to ‘own’ these advantages while using his party to encircle the leadership of the National Assembly.” Beyond this, Ekweremadu may have become a burden the APC has to carry for the next four years. But the Deputy Senate President will also be carrying a burden of being the face of a government he was not part of, especially when it comes to defending government policies for instance. While he has said he is ready to join hands to work for the success of Buhari administration, how comfortable will he be in the midst of APC Senators, especially when it comes to policies related to the manifestoes of the party? While the easy way out for Ekweremadu would have been to defect to APC, the ruling by the Supreme Court late last year that lawmakers who defected from the platform on which they got elected must vacate their seats is will be a hindrance. There is also the question of the benefits that Ekweremadu can attract to the Southeast as a Deputy Senate President. While the Deputy Senate President said he accepted to contest for the position so as to ensure that the Southeast has a strong representation and is not marginalized at the federal level, the region’s chapter of APC does not think so. Osita Okechukwu, spokesman for APC in the zone in a statement titled: “Buhari Will Not Marginalise South-east and South-south,” said the reasons tendered by Ekweremadu for contesting for the position were false because the Buhari administration had plans for the six zones of the country. “For the avoidance of doubt, as of Saturday, June 13, 2015, and to date, when this unimaginative propaganda was reeled out to hapless and anxious crowd by Senator Ekweremadu, President Buhari has not named the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), ministers, advisers, ambassadors, boards etc. On which plank was this propaganda predicated?” the South East chapter of APC queried while arguing that the office of “Deputy Senate President in real-politics is more symbolic than substantial.” [caption id="attachment_26234" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Osita Okechukwu: Southeast APC spokesman[/caption] The Southeast APC further argued in the statement that merely occupying the position of Deputy Senate President will not make South-east and South-south part and parcel of Buhari’s government. Okechukwu also claimed that not much was achieved for the two regions even when Ekweremadu occupied the office under former President Goodluck Jonathan, his party man. Speaking in the same vein, Senator Ngige likened the position of the Deputy Senate President to that of Deputy Governor, even as he described both positions as a “spare tyre or standby generator.” He, however, agreed that the emergence of the deputy senate president from the PDP in the Southeast will help keep the party alive in the region: “PDP in the Southeast will have oxygen to breathe from because they now have the highest-ranking (Igbo) person in Nigeria.” [caption id="attachment_26232" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Ngige: Edged out of Senate presidency after losing the 28 March election[/caption] Beyond this, the Southeast APC also feared that the emergence of Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate President has jeopardized the chances of the region in terms of getting the position of Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF which is considered to be a more influential office. The speculations after the elections, especially with the Southeast’s failure to elect a Senator or Representatives who could occupy the position of the Senate President or Speaker was that the position of SGF will be zoned to the Southeast as a compensation. Drs. Ogbonaya Onu and Chris Ngige are the leading candidates of the Southeast touted as the potential beneficiaries of the position. With the emergence of Ekweremadu, there have been fears among the APC members in the region that since the Southeast has been settled with the position of the Deputy Senate President, the SGF may be appointed from the South-south. Thus, the Southeast APC is not only peeved by Ekweremadu’s usurpation of the office of the deputy senate president, but his suggestions during the reception organized for him that with his election, the marginalization of the region has been taken care of. “Accordingly, for the records we appeal that the South-east and South-south, especially we of the APC stock should not be denied any position due to us because of our brother’s unintended headline that we have been settled,” the Southeast APC said in the statement by Okechukwu. “We are therefore at a loss why the distinguished Senator should choose this auspicious moment to play spoiler game, by wittingly or unwittingly throwing spanner in our wheel to clinch the coveted office of SGF. Pundits may grab his unintended headline that we have been settled,” it added. But Hon. Paul Anikwe, a PDP chieftain in Enugu State and a two time member of Enugu State House of Assembly disagreed. According to him, the Southeast is happy about the emergence of the Deputy Senate President because he will continue to deliver democracy dividend to his senatorial district, Enugu State, and the zone. Anikwe said there’s nothing wrong in Ekweremadu calling on Buhari to carry every part of the country, including the Southsouth, along being a statesman and a Deputy President of the Senate of all Nigerians. “Look at it this way: out of the first seven positions in the land, namely: President, Vice President, Senate President, Deputy President of the Senate, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, the South-east would have been nowhere but for the stunt pulled by Ekweremadu and the PDP Senators and their leaders. The Chief Justice of Nigeria is already from the North, likewise the Court of Appeal and Federal High Court,” said Anikwe. Whatever be the case, the fact is that Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President in what is supposed to be an APC Congress and an APC government has now joined the ruling party, Dr. Vitus Ozoke, a lawyer and professor of conflict resolution, Salisbury University said while analyzing the position of the legal practitioner has now found himself. According to him, the greater burden on Ekweremadu now is the shared responsibility of working for the realization of the change mantra that was responsible for the victory of APC in the 2015 general elections. “He now must work for change. If he does not, if the PDP, having joined the leadership of an APC Congress, fails to work for the change that Nigerians voted for, or even worse, impedes change, it will have dug an eternal grave for itself. Like I said, it is a very simple and straightforward theory: Ike Ekweremadu and the PDP have assumed shared responsibility for the new direction,” said Ozoke. The Deputy Senate President seemed to be thinking along this line when he advised the APC last week to stop playing politics while noting that what Nigerians expect now are policies and programmes that would benefit the majority of Nigerians, irrespective of political affiliations. “We have finished with politics, what is remaining now is governance and this country belongs to all of us and the constituents are not interested in whether you are APC or PDP. What they want is good governance and we must unite as a people to give Nigeria good governance. The issue of bickering and differences does not have any place in the minds of our people. What they want is performance, what they want to see is good governance and we must unite,” Ekweremadu said when he hosted members of the Coalition of Election Observers, who visited him in Abuja. Without a realistic tactics of booting Ekweremadu out, except he voluntarily throws in the towel, an option which appears very impossible, the APC and President Buhari may have no option, but to work with the Senate and its burden of oxymoronic leadership for now.