Process of selection is faulty -Ogunlewe
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has insisted that it will not go back on the choice of the senate leader, Mr. Ahmad Lawan as president of the ninth senate and warned the former senate leader, Mr. Ali Ndume and other agitators to desist from fomenting trouble.
The party also declared that there would be no election for the principal officers of the 9th national assembly except the minority leader saying “the party is going to present consensus candidate and does not need the votes of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to install national assembly leadership.
Addressing the media at the party’s secretariat in Abuja yesterday, the party’s spokesman, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, said the party’s endorsement of Lawan as senate president enjoyed the backing of the party’s leadership, including President Muhammadu Buhari.
He stated that APC would not share power with the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PD) having learnt from the mistake of the 2015.
“The party, in its own judgment, believes that we will not only zone, we will go as far as identifying who from a particular zone is fit and proper as the senate president.
“From every zone of this country, we have ranking members in the national assembly all eminently qualified to be senate president but we cannot have two senate presidents.
“So, in this case, considering other factors, the party, and when I say the party, I am not just referring to the national working committee because there was a wide consultation across the country, the party leaders, governors and Mr. President.
“So, this is not just something coming from the Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole or national working committee, it is the position of the ruling party. So, the idea of taking the thing to the zone is an option we had also considered before now arriving at a particular individual from the Northeast.
“I have listened to the PDP react to this and in their usual style they exhibited gross ignorance. What we practise in Nigeria is called the Presidential System of Government and in such a system, it is winner takes all.
“Once you win, you take whatever you won. There is no room for power sharing. We do not need it because we do not need them (PDP) to run this government. We have enough number to run this government and in any case, when we were campaigning, we never told Nigerians that we were going to share power with any other party.
“We told them, ‘please, entrust power to us fully’. And Nigerians have graciously assented to that. It would be a betrayal of that trust to go ahead and start sharing power with a party, particularly the PDP that has been rejected by Nigerians.
“We are smarting from the experience of the last four years, precisely what happened in 2015 when some traitors in the APC fold sold our birthright to an opposition party and some people now considered that to be the new normal. It is not.
“In fact, that was undemocratic. It was treachery and we thank God also that Nigerians have punished the people that are involved. They were rejected. Many of them are now on compulsory retirement from politics.
“That is the verdict of the people of this country for those who dared to compromise basic democratic principles which says that in a presidential system of government, when you have the majority, you have the trust of the people to form a government without conceding anything to the people they have rejected.
“If they wanted PDP, they would have voted for the PDP. We patterned our Presidential system of government after the United States of America USA. When last did you see them go to the floor to elect the Speaker?
“Any party that has the majority automatically has the speaker. If you remember, Pelosi was the speaker of the US House of Representatives. Immediately, the Republicans got majority, she became the minority leader.
“It is automatic except where you have traitors; people who do not have a commitment to values whose only interest is to fester their own selfish desires. In the last election in the US, when Democrats became the majority, Pelosi reverted and became the Speaker”, he explained.
“All the principal officers are determined by simple majority and because Nigerians have given us more than what we had even in the outgoing dispensation, we have enough to elect all our officers.
“We do not need a single vote from the PDP and in any case, we don’t actually envisage any election on that day because we are going to present to our members to occupy these positions and it is the collective position of the party and all our members are very experienced politicians who understand what this means.
“When they get to the floor, they are going to read out the names and if the PDP so desire, they can bring a candidate and follow that candidate with the number they have got. So, it will be an exercise in futility for PDP to nurse the ambition to share from what Nigerians have taken from them.
“It is not the party that will determine whether there will be an election or not. By the time we announce these names, having a clear majority on the floor, any one that wants to oppose would have to present his candidates, backing them up with numbers.
“So, there is only one person being put forward and then you have a consensus. So, even if there is going to be an election it would just be a mere formality. We do not envisage a situation where two APC senators would stand as candidates for a position. That would only happen if this party has done its homework,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lawan’s loyalists under the umbrella of ‘Ahmed Lawan for Senate President Group of Senators,’ have faulted Ndume saying all the APC senators-elect were carried along in the adoption of Lawan for the position.
This is contrary to the position of Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who claimed on Tuesday that the announcement of Lawan’s adoption by APC national chairman Mr. Adams Oshiomhole shocked the party’s senators-elect during a dinner with President Muhammadu Buhari.
It would be recalled that Ndume had made his protest public yesterday when he described the process that produced Lawan as not only “embarrassing” but also “unconstitutional.”
Addressing the media at his Apo Legislative Quarters in Abuja, the lawmaker said: “What took place at the presidential dinner in Aso Rock on Monday night, where Oshiomhole as party chairman, announced Senator Ahmed Lawan and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila as president of the ninth senate and the speaker of the House of Representatives respectively was very shocking to me and many of my colleagues.
“Oshiomhole in making the announcement or endorsement, did not even allow myself or senators Danjuma Goje (Gombe Central) and Abdullahi Adamu (Nasarawa West), widely known to be in the race for the position to say anything.
“More disturbing was the fact that even Senator Lawan endorsed for the position, was not allowed to make any comment in form of acceptance speech or soliciting for support from other interested senators.”
But the arrowhead of and spokesman for Lawan’s loyalists, Mr. Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, who apparently reacted to Ndume’s claim: “It is not good for somebody to peddle lies.”
He said when Oshiomhole announced the adoption of Lawan, the party chairman spoke in the presence of some state governors including those of Oyo, Kebbi and Borno.
He said Oshiomhole appealed to them to support Lawan to avoid the mistake of the past.
“Immediately he said that, there was instantaneous and spontaneous applause by senators who were there. For somebody to say there was surprise and shock following the announcement, he was economical with the truth. There was no shock, rather there was relief,” Abdullahi said.
Ogunlewe faults selection process
Reacting to Lawan’s emergence, a member of the PDP board of trustees and former minister of works, Mr. Adeseye Ogunlewe, faulted the method of the selection saying it can tear the party apart.
BusinessDay quotes Ogunlewe as saying that said such a matter should be discussed by the party caucus, while all senators of the APC should have been carried along.
“The method adopted by Oshiomhole is wrong; such a decision should be a caucus thing where everyone is carried along. It is not for the party chairman or the president to be adopting a candidate alone. They are just playing to the gallery and you will see that it may consume them,” he said.
Ogunlewe, who represented Lagos East senatorial zone between 1999 and 2003 further stated that he did not expect the National Assembly to be a rubber stamp of the executives, adding that such was bad for the nation’s democracy.
“The APC appointing leadership of the National Assembly does not mean they will be hijacked,” he said.
Being educated people, he argued that that their positions on issues would depend on the topics. If the issue does not favour their constituency they will not vote for it.
“We don’t expect the Senate or House of Representatives to be a rubber stamp; that will be bad for our democracy,” Ogunlewe said.
