2015: Jonathan’s Men In House Of Reps Edegbe Odemwingie — March 19, 2014 For a House of Representatives that boasts of a membership strength of 360, covering the entire 360 federal constituencies, surely being on the same page with the House members will be in the best interest to President Goodluck Jonathan’s touted plans to seek re-election come 2015. EDEGBE ODEMWINGIE profiles the President’s men in the House. Officially, the race for who occupies Aso Rock after the 2015 presidential elections has commenced at least with the just-concluded membership registration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) – a merger of a cocktail of major Nigerian opposition political parties. The camps of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the APC have traded words on the legitimacy of President Goodluck Jonathan’s touted 2015 re-election ambition. Jonathan has cleverly kept mum whether or not he would seek re-election in 2015 while everybody (either for or against), is busy touting him. Of course, it gives him leeway later if he chooses. Despite the reversed appeal his administration once enjoyed, some say all is not lost if he can get it right (politically and in actual governance) in roughly a year and half left to his regime’s end. Enter 2014, a year touted as the decider for who gets what politically in 2015. The House of Representative is a major power bloc that is already being courted by contenders and their umbrella political parties, evident in the gale of political party cross-carpeting. The immediate challenge to the PDP dominance of Nigeria’s political firmament evidently is in the National Assembly, where the party has enjoyed overwhelming majority since 1999. The situation in both chambers of the National Assembly is still fluid. The gale of lawmaker’s defection which has tossed majority status between the PDP and APC in the House of Representatives has continued to cause jitters in the presidency and the PDP camps. Jonathan and his party will predictably be working to gain upper hand in the defections while relying heavily on his backers (surely PDP ilk) in the House of Representatives for a his touted re- election bid. PDP, since the resumption of the House from it annual recess has steadily gained an upper hand in the gale of political party cross-carpeting, recently clinching a 10-member lead over the APC. The President’s Men Mulikat Adeola Akande: House Leader She emerged the first female Majority Leader of the House of Representatives after she lost out to current House Speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal in a stiff battle for the leadership of the House at the time. Tambuwal snubbed a PDP arrangement which favoured Mrs. Akande to emerge House Speaker. For Jonathan, the soft spoken House Leader will be expected to play her traditional “go between” role in the House if Jonathan makes good his touted plan to seek re-election. Leonard Okuweh Ogor: Deputy House Leader He was the sponsor of the motion calling on the then Vice-President, Goodluck Jonathan to assume full presidential powers until the then ailing President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua would recover and resume as President. Jonathan will later become de facto president following Yar ‘Adua’s death. The Delta lawmaker has been a veritable bridge between the House and the Presidency in times of crises involving the two. Ogor is a man who strongly believes in legislative democracy and has made a strong case for improved Executive-Legislative relations. Isiaka Bawa: Chief Whip Last November, the Taraba lawmaker who is the House Chief Whip accompanied President Goodluck Jonathan on a three-day meeting of Nigeria’s Honourary International Investors’ Council (HIIC) in London. Bawa chairs the House ad-hoc committee on Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), a position that brings him in close quarters with powerful interests, many of them Jonathan’s backers. A major power broker in his home state Taraba and the House of Representatives, it is learnt that Bawa has already been pencilled by the Jonathan’s camp as an influential stakeholder expected to attract audience and subsequently swing support for a Jonathan candidacy in 2015. He is very close to the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP), Dr. Ahmed Mu’azu and the party’s Chairman, Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, known as ‘Mr Fix-it’. Bawa’s reported interest in the Taraba governorship seat also puts him in a position to barter his support for Jonathan with his governorship ambition. Warman Ogoriba Weri Ogoriba represents Yenagoa/Kolokuna/ Opokuma federal constuency in Bayelsa state, Jonathan’s home state. They are of the same Ijaw ethnic stock. Ogoriba who chairs the South-South caucus in the House of Representatives and House Committee on Niger Delta Affairs is visible in the circles of the Special Adviser to the President on Amnesty Programme, Mr. Kingsley Kuku and the former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Orubebe, known Jonathan’s henchmen. Kyari Gujbawu In the North-East, Jonathan has a staunch ally in Gujbawu, a Borno lawmaker. He has faced stiff criticism from his home state over his support for Jonathan. A group, Maiduguri Patriotic Front (MPC) had cautioned Gujbawu, to focus on legislation and desist from “selling out his constituency of Borno” mainly to please the presidency for his selfish interests. Gujbawu stated in an interview last December, “From the legal perspective, all of us are aware that the President (Jonathan) is serving his first term. The Constitution is unequivocally clear on how many times the President can serve and that is two terms. So, the Constitution gives Jonathan the right to re-contest for the office of the president with the mandate of the people. “We are not saying Jonathan should just continue, it is left for the people to decide. If you feel you have someone better than him, then bring him into the contest. If Jonathan says, look Nigerians have I done well give me your mandate, allow him to talk that talk with the Nigerian people. That is the law. “The second perspective is the political issue, which is the big issue upon which the opponents of Jonathan draw from on him not to contest. If you notice, this clamour is coming from the Northern region which I come from. There is a Hausa proverb that says, “before you go forward look at how far you have gone.” Tajudeen Yusuf The Kogi lawmaker representing Kabba Bunu/Ijumu Federal Constituency insist that Jonathan has a constitutional right to seek re-contest in 2015. “Only Nigerians can determine Jonathan’s fate,” Yusuf stated last September. Yusuf who is vice-chairman, House Committee on Information and Communication Technology stated then, “Let me tell you something about political power, nobody relinquishes power because somebody wishes to take power. Mind you, what the aggrieved members are saying is that they don’t want certain national officers of the party; they don’t want the way they are leading the party. And again, PDP is not the only political party that will field candidate for elections in 2015; we have other political parties. “But for now, the president has not said anything about 2015. So, it is not right for me to be assuming or building hypothesis here and come to conclusion. If he (the president) has any reason to contest, has the constitution barred him? Because it is Nigerians who will determine who they feel should lead them.” Uche Ekwunife She is regarded in the president’s camp as a “friend of the house”. The Anambra lawmaker who chairs the House Committee on Environment is known to junket regularly with Jonathan and his wife, Patience. Others Hons. Sunday Karimi (Kogi/PDP) and Ralph Nnanna Igbokwe (Imo/PDP) have been very visible in protecting the PDP and the president’s interest in the House – plenary and committee level. March 5, a House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream) investigative public hearing into the controversial kerosene subsidy turned rowdy as lawmakers – pitched along political party lines – traded words on the line of questioning directed at the Director General Budget Office, Dr. Bright Okogwu. Committee members from the PDP challenged the Committee Chairman, Dakuku Peterside (Rivers/APC) for demanding that the DG Budget clarify on the legality of the NNPC’s deduction of kerosene subsidy payments at source before remittance to the Country’s Consolidated Revenue Account (CRA). Karimi and Igbokwe accused Peterside of pursuing a “private enterprise” in the latter’s line of questioning. The duo have also been very active in their defensive roles in the House Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chaired by another APC lawmaker, Solomon Olamilekan. Two Rivers lawmakers, Hons. Kingsley Chinda and Betty Jocelyne Okagua- Apiafi have taken the side of Jonathan over governor Rotimi Amaechi in the political crisis that engulfed Rivers. Also, the duo of Hons. Albert Sam- Tsokwa (Chairman, Rules and Businness) and Uzor Azubuike (Chairman, Public Petitions) have consistently opined that Jonathan be given a chance, in the face of constant criticisms that has met the President’s administration. Tenure debates Well, despite rotational debates that has dominated who becomes president prelude to the 2015 general elections, Jonathan backers insist that he has a legitimate constitutional right to seek re-election come 2015. APC’s Interim National Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande thinks differently. Akande last year cautioned Jonathan on his touted 2015 ambition, claiming the president is seeking a ‘third term’ in office. He dismissed Jonathan as an “unserious- minded president” who runs a “kindergarten presidency”. “He (Jonathan) takes national issues with levity. All he is concerned about is his third term ambition. He has reduced the totality of Nigeria to kindergarten governance. Jonathan today is the most powerful President in the world. He has all the powers arrogated to him and he’s still asking for more”, the APC Chairman fired while fielding questions from journalists on the state of the nation in his Ila-Orangun country home, Osun State. The 1999 Constitution (as amended) states that any Nigerian that has not been elected to the office of President two times previously, among other qualifications, is eligible to contest for the presidency. President Jonathan has been ‘elected’ only once The constitution guarantees two terms of four years each for president and governor. If the president contests and wins in 2015 and spends another four years in office he will be spending a total of nine years in office altogether. This is as against two terms of four years each envisaged under the constitution. Recall Jonathan spent one year completing the tenure of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua from 2010 to 2011. A one-term President? According to pundits, if the defection of the five governors with APC stands till 2015, it may lead to a situation in which PDP would come out of the general election a minority party and perhaps, without producing the President as it had done in the four previous polls. On paper, there is a real possibility of Jonathan being a one-term president. By political calculations, it will be difficult for any presidential candidate to win any election without bagging 25 per cent of the votes in any two of Kano, Lagos and Rivers, the three states now safely in the pouch of the opposition. According to 2011 records of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the three states account for 13.7million votes, about 25 per cent of total number of registered voters in the country. At the state level, the PDP is still in control of 18 out of the 36 states while APC now controls 16. Furthermore, the North-East and North- West geo-political zones are likely to rally around APC since the ‘core north’ desperately wants to recapture power in 2015. By the foregoing, Jonathan clearly has his task cut out if his much touted re- election bid is anything to go by. Let the race begin!
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 04:52:46 +0000
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