Governors And The Fear Of Enlarged Parties’ NEC

Posted by admin Governors, Legislature Saturday, December 25th, 2010

Questions over why members of the Governors Forum of Nigeria loathe or dread the proposed enlarged National Executive Committees (NEC) of their various parties can begin to agitate the minds of some rational political enthusiast in the country now that the bubble seem to have burst in favor of the state chief executive officers.

Why we may ask. Yet somehow we may just limit to the usual and concede to the Nigerian factor, that after rain after all, comes sunshine. Recent uproar and mounting protest visited on members of the National Assembly by the Governors Forum over a bill to make the lawmakers automatic members of their parties National Executive Committee(NEC) is needless if it is a generally accepted norm in the nation’s political circle that in the struggle or political power game that, “there are no permanent enemies or permanent friends, but permanent interest ”.
This assertion as a norm in itself activates the contemporary power dynamics of our times such that for any efforts deployed in any power play or game is certainly for a political gain and self serving. It is therefore on this premise that it is also assumed that the above contention is aptly guided by what seem to be like an unwritten statement in our political statute books that we can “ use what we have to get what we want”.
If this is the case then, the campaign of calumny recently smeared on the National Assembly members by stakeholders especially the PDP Governors over the NEC automatic tickets during the amendment of the Electoral Act is nothing but mere rhetoric.
In the recent past weeks Nigerians have been fed with all manner of statements scandalizing members of the national assembly as selfish and attempting to scuttle the democratic process by enlarging the NEC to include themselves. While most political stakeholders say the NASS members actions will make the national executive committees extra large, others say their motive is self seeking. But the federal lawmakers through their various spokesperson denied the allegations. They said that they are only expanding the political space. Senator Ayaougu Eze spokesperson of the Senate, argued that they were misunderstood and scandalized, adding that their mission was to rescue the parties from the dominance and strongholds of the country’s 36 state Governors.
Truly speaking and in all sense of modesty it is instructive to state that the political activities of the states chief executive officers has in no time turned them into intimidating masquerades which is unbecoming of a diminutive group in the political equation of the country.
For instance, why will they want to continue to dominate every facet of the Nigeria’s political space is an unanswered puzzle. At the locale they decide who become chairmen. They control the states assemblies up to the extent of deciding who goes to where either in the senate or the House of representatives. This perhaps is the growing suspicion between the national assembly members and the governors. They are also accused of interfering in traditional stools and chieftaincy matters in their communities as well as in the statutory role of the presidency by mounting pressures at times to blackmail the president when the odds seem against them. A domineering role if left unchecked will corrupt them absolutely.
However, this unbridled way of playing politics has raised fears in the polity such that it is fast emerging a governors political pressure forum that dictates the political pendulum in Nigeria for its own selfish benefits rather than the non governmental organization posture the umbrella association pretends to be.
In perspective therefore, Providence has it that some of the political challenges the country had been faced in recent times had been fuelled in subtle ways by these group of persons. For example, look at the times and political impasse generated by President Umaru Yaradua’s ailment. It was when Nigerians needed the governors to come out promptly and take a stand and allow the then vice president transmute immediately as president that majority of them began to speak in double tongues thus overheating the polity by supporting in subtle means the Michael Andoakka led cabal to deny president Jonathan his constitutional role of acting president.
Unfortunately, however, these past political inactions of the governors and the untoward utterances over the NEC impasse roundly underscores the believe that it is the governors and not the national assembly members that plan to scuttle democracy.
Take a look at the communiqué issued on the matter before it was jettisoned by the national Assembly. It is not only a pointer to deceit but another subtle means of blackmailing the federal lawmakers on one hand and president Good Luck Jonathan on the other hand.
Added to this, is the wordings of the resolution at the so called governors meeting in Bukola saraki’s liaison home in Abuja which sounds treacherous and demands such reasonable prodding as to Why will they threaten to quit or ask the president from the executive branch of government to interfere in the works of the legislature ostensibly because the National Assembly members want to make a new law that does not favor their political shenanigans. Could it also not be their wish to ask the executive arm or President Good luck Jonathan as the president and head of federal government in a democracy of the rule of law and where the principles of separation of powers is sacrosanct to sacrifice parties NEC membership on the alter of the governors ego tripping by directing the reversal of the judgments of the Ekiti and Osun polls, a statutory role of the judiciaries because they are Governors Forum Nigeria limited?
For most Nigerians it is better to subscribe to an enlarged political space than buy into the Governors scandalous campaign of calumny against the lawmakers. This is because this set of political personalities are becoming absolutely power drunk and therefore needed to be regulated and controlled through this same proposed enlarged NEC they loathe. That is one way to checkmate their political nuances and nuisance value that is presently their carriage, If not, Nigerians would have been caged politically by these inconsequential group.
In any case, as was reported in the opening passage of this write up, what the Governors are playing is the same kind of politics of using what you have to get what you want. Which in the Nigerian way of doing things is an opportunistic tendency to use their present political position they wield to whip everybody in line including president Jonathan who needs their support dearly as the political time bomb ticks between him and Atiku Abubakar.
As a lesson to all and sundry, what is playing out apparently is that the Governors are becoming a tyrannical time bomb that could be unleashed on any segment of the political community to get whatever they desire at their whimps and caprices no matter whose ox is gourd as a food for thought for the president tie has reached its zenith where he must not trust the Forum as currently led by Governor Bukola Saraki. Saraki no doubt who is a stooge of the Ciroma led NPLF and he is also doing Atiku’s bidding by using the controversies surrounding the electoral Act amendments and other undefined ways to blackmail President Jonathan to kowtow to their selfish minds if they must support him (Jonathan) to win the PDP primaries and the subsequent presidential general elections next year?
Taking a cursory look at the communiqué issued by the governors in Saraki’s lodge, the summation of the analysis point more or less to political witch-hunting against Jonathan’s presidential bid. According to the resolution which reads inter- alia, “ The Governors resolved to quit the PDP, if president Good luck Jonathan assents to the law: We condemn the amendment to the electoral Act 2010 passed by the House of Representatives which is repugnant and self serving and we therefore dissociate ourselves entirely from the action; In view of this we call on the national leader of our party to join other parties and well meaning Nigerians to condemn and reject this undemocratic Act “ they had argued.
Like the governors who were once neck deep in the unwritten law of “ use what you have to get what you want” and which they have long benefited, the NEC issues is now their undoing as they cry wolf everyday mudslinging the names of every lawmaker in sight. Even though it may not be good in the eyes of some to have every body in the NEC of parties but it is good to regulate the conduct and excesses of all political players on the field politicians especially the Governors.
This is so because as an unverifiable law to “ use what you have to get what you want” , the politicians don’t see the development as an unusual scenario when the scramble for power favors them. But they cry hoarse when the pendulum swings contrary. But unfortunate as the NEC hullabaloo stares us, it is also condemnable what the governors and some political opportunists who continue to lord it over the entire political space to get what they want no matter how are doing for the reason that what the national assembly members are just doing is imitating the Governors, thereby keeping fate with the dynamics of our kind of politics. Which is to say, that they are using what they have now to get what they want in order to protect their future interest against the unilateral dominance hitherto by the Governors.
According to arguments advanced by two schools of thoughts over the NEC controversy , the governors they argued are mere whistle blowers trying to scandalize the lawmakers. One of the schools who argued on the rationale of the states chief executives officers to form a pressure group, demanded to know on whose interest it was established while another reasoning argued, that since they are registered as a bloc with the corporate affairs commission under the aegis of the “Nigeria Governors Forum”, on whose platform therefore, will the unwieldy 467 federal lawmakers ply their trade?
Is it as ‘National Legislators Forum” to fight everybody in sight or play safe and become mere members of their parties NEC and add value to the development of all the political parties in the country?. Which is more rational, the analyst asked.
Sincerely speaking, apart from the big parties like the PDP, ACN, ANPP which are suspicious of themselves, the idea of further enlisting members of the National Assembly into the NEC of smaller parties Like APGA, CPC, DPP will further increase the democratic space and enhance internal democracy for them.
Save for this outlandish out cry by the Forum, the Governors are seeing more as a pressure group than the NGO they pretend to be. For the lawmakers, they don’t have any external pressure group beside the internal blocs they form inside parliament to enhance lawmaking and for negotiating and lobbying for democratic dividends for their constituents which is limited within the precincts of the National Assembly.
It may be true that as federal lawmakers who operate far away in Abuja that they don’t have much says in the constituencies they represent since it is roundly dominated by the local government chairman and the state governors. Perhaps this is why the lawmakers are hell bent to have themselves relevant in the party polity using this failed amendment process as a chance opportunity.
But It is correct that the 36 Governors are a pressure group whose past and present showings as well as antecedents portray them like those who have departed from the letters of their article of association as an NGO. Ask anybody of one or any good policy that the Governors collectively have bequeathed to the people they govern as a body.
One of the school of thoughts lambasted them for not using the Forum to jointly find solutions to the myriad of problems in the various education sector in their respective states like the protracted south east ASUU strike that has lingered for months unattended and yet the forum is there only interested in how to consolidate power and control all the tiers of government including the presidency, an analyst who also demanded their ‘pedigree” asked.
No doubt it is proper to say that in the last 10 years not much can be ascribed to the FORUM as providing real and quality democratic dividend for the citizens of the 36 states they govern as contributions to the national development and nation building in spite of the trillions they have ferried from the national treasury.
Except for some few ones, their actions have been viewed more of receiving from the abundance of the perk of office than giving quality and patriotic leadership direction to the states.
According to another political analyst ,“ if they are not seeing fighting for their own to become president and vice president, they are at their speakers neck or attempting to undo the federal lawmaker who do not bow to them. These are the species of governors we have had over time, a political analyst stated.
Though many reasoning of discerning minds spoke against the electoral Act amendment or the “evil legislation” which the Governors say is capable of truncating the country’s democracy increase, it is recalled that it was the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) through its publicity secretary Lai Mohammed that first condemned the move. Speaker, Lagos state House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji also joined the frays of other stakeholders calling on Nigerians to resist the attempts. In his case he said that “ the Party is supreme and should not be seen to be relegated to less an important position. According to him “ even though one was elected as lawmaker at the grass root, state and the national level, does not arrogate to oneself or give the lawmaker such power.
Honorable Patrick Obahiangbon, member representing Oredo federal constituency in Edo State risked a suspension but cleverly offered an “apologia’ to the House of Representatives when he was accused of condemning his colleagues moves to amend the electoral Act and make themselves automatic party NEC members.
But the National Assembly and some of rationale political enthusiast insist that the governors impunity on the electoral space is unjustly and must be curtailed lest they become too powerful to control as it now seems. We may have missed this opportunity to checkmate these excesses of the Nigeria Governors Forum since the amendment was a chance encounter that could have right the political wrong previously engaged by the so called states chief executive officers.
Now that we have lost this chance again to the dominance of these ‘36’ who’s next is in their jugular, maybe president Jonathan. Nigerians ask because the campaign against the National Assembly members in the true sense of it is share blackmail and arrant nonsense and a concerted decoy by the Governors to continue to dictate the political trend of both the local governments, the states and the national assembly as well as the president through the ignoble “Nigeria Governors Forum”.wp_posts

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Posted by admin on Dec 25 2010. Filed under Governors, Legislature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry