Given that the Adolphus Wabara Senate is all and all an appendage of the executive branch of government, the impression that the Senate is desperately warming up to whoever would succeed President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007, could be scandalous.
With the nation apprehensive over the strike threat by the coalition of orgainised labour and civil society groups arising from the recent hike in fuel prices, the shock for many Nigerians is that the politics of presidential succession could be of greater priority for some in the nation’s upper legislative chamber.
Amidst the prevailing suffering in the land, the impression as it were by some elements in the Senate, is that things as usual, could well be befuddling.
For yet some others, especially in the leadership, the priority was to sustain the cordial relations with the presidency.
With such priorities, it could be suggested that everything was normal in the polity.
So when Senator Musliu Obanikoro (AD, Lagos) raised the issue of distress in the land and the possibility that many Nigerians could be dying from hunger, he was to receive the strong tongue lashes of the chubby deputy Senate President, Alhaji Nasir Ibrahim Mantu.
Senator Obanikoro had raised the issue of the impending strike and called on fellow senators to do something urgent, stressing that Nigerians were dying from hunger, one induced by the overdose of reforms which seem not to come with palliatives needed to cushion its harsh effects on the generality of Nigerians.
Obanikoro had tried to draw the attention of the deputy Senate president, who was Thursday presiding, to the sufferings of Nigerians, a suffering which could have been avoided had the Federal Government been clear headed about its reform agenda. But Mantu would not hear any of that.
At a time when labour was set to embark on a nationwide strike action in collaboration with civil society groups, this was what the presiding Senator Mantu, who is actually seen as being more Aremu than Obasanjo, had to say:
“I don’t know anywhere in Nigeria where people are dying from hunger. We have the percentage of people who are dying from HIV/AIDS but we don’t know of Nigerians dying from hunger,” Senator Mantu who presided last Thursday when the Senate finally got round to debating the fuel hike said.
With the threat of industrial action dangling like the Sword of Damocles, it was really surprising that the Senate and its leadership considered petty presidential politicking a greater priority to the thorny issue of the strike threat. It did not matter to Mantu that Nigerians were groaning under the burden imposed by Obasanjo’s hydra-headed reform programme. It did not matter to Mantu that between 1999 and 2004 while Obasanjo ran (and is still running) the country, that the price of petrol had jumped from N22 per litre to N53.
It could not have mattered to Mantu that Nigerians have now become impoverished much more than they were even under the rule of Sani Abacha.
Rather than acknowledge the contributions of Obanikoro, Mantu chose to lampoon him and pooh-pooh the reality that Nigerians are today hungrier and were, therefore, in need of government support, more than ever before because of the self-same government’s draconian reformist policies which rather than bring succour, has left (and is leaving) the people more impoverished. And like Umaru Dikko said in 1983, Mantu also claimed that Nigerians were not dying of hunger.
Arising from the alleged threat by elements in their constituencies to recall Senator (Prof) Jubril Aminu (PDP, Adamawa Central) and Senator Sani Sanmi (ANPP, Kebbi South), the Senate last Wednesday in a resolution condemned the moves. It further mandated its Committee on Governmental Affairs to wade in to resolve whatever problems the two senators may be having with the troublemakers in their constituencies.
Given his assiduous commitment to his job, particularly as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and his antecedents in the nation’s political space, the recall threat against Senator Aminu could indeed be baffling.
More than several of his colleagues, Senator Aminu has demonstrated an unusual meticulousness in the discharge of his legislative duties. Topping his achievements in the Senate was his role in the screening of ambassadorial nominees some few months ago when he showed that Senate screening was not a merry go round that could be settled by Ghana-Must-Go.
Charlatans with purchased academic and honorary degrees were humbled during the Senate screening as he showed an almost unNigerian inclination to thoroughness.
Senator Aminu’s collaboration with Senator (Prof.) Oserheinmen Osunbor in the joint report of the Senate Committees on Foreign Affairs and Judiciary on the government’s loans to Ghana and Sao Tome, was another demonstration of his assiduousness.
There were, however, suggestions that nothing less than their near perfect report could have been expected from Professors Aminu and Osunbor, two of the Senate’s most cerebral, enterprising and diligent men.
Besides, Senator Aminu’s contributions to debates have in almost all cases, shown a depth of knowledge that fittingly reflects the supposed ranking of the Senate as a gathering of the nation’s most elderly men.
A founding member of the PDP and member of the Board of Trustees, Senator Aminu, alongside Alhaji Bamanga Tukur and Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, have until recently, been seen as the triumvirate that steered the direction of politics in Adamawa State.
So what could have gone wrong when penultimate week, a bunch of party elders from his Adamawa Central Senatorial district addressed a press conference indicating their plan to recall the Senator from the Senate?
Among several innuendoes given for their plan, the party men said:“Prof Jibril Aminu’s alleged political romance with an ANPP Governor from the North West who is believed to be a strong supporter of a presidential aspirant from the North Central, is a conscious attempt to undermine the collective aspiration of the people of Adamawa State and indeed, the entire North-East sub-region for the presidency. We find this not only embarrassing, but disgraceful and will not be tolerated by anybody in PDP from Adamawa Central much less by Prof. Jibril Aminu who through the good will of the Vice-President, our 2007 presidential hopeful, Governor Boni Haruna and the entire people of the Adamawa Central Zone , got elected into the Senate with ease,” the group said in its press conference on September 23.
In alleging Senator Aminu’s alleged romance with a North Central presidential hopeful, to wit, former President Ibrahim Babangida, the group inevitably drew home the raging political battle in Atiku Abubakar’s backyard.
Senator Sanmi on his part has followed an independent course supposedly ambivalent of the political considerations of his state Governor, Alhaji Adamu Aliero, who is generally seen in political circles to be Atiku’s main man in the Northwest.
Senator Sanmi, a former minister in the Second Republic had in his first year in the Senate, earned a reputation of being one of the harshest critics of the present administration. He was particularly trenchant during the first el-Rufai crisis when he sought to dig to the root of the bribery scandal made against two senators by the FCT minister, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai. In getting to the root, there are suggestions that Senator Sanmi’s real intention may have been to embarrass the Vice-President, the supposed godfather of el-Rufai and Senator Jonathan Zwingina, two of the three principal actors in the bribery scandal.
Senator Sanmi capped his ‘notoriety’ last year with his compilation and submission to the Senate President of alleged impeachable offences supposedly committed by President Obasanjo. Expectedly, nothing was heard from the Senate President on the alleged constitutional breaches.
In rattling the two men, the Atiku camp, it was suggested, was demonstrating its capacity to fight back against the opposition.
So when Senator Sule Yari Gandi, (ANPP, Sokoto) last Wednesday moved his motion to express solidarity with the two senators and condemn the move, he was only giving more strength to the impression that the Atiku-Babangida war had come to the Senate floor.
With Senator Gandi seen as an apostle of the Babangida movement, the impression, to observers, was that the Babangida camp was now using the Senate chambers to demonstrate their capacity to vanquish over the Atiku camp.
Senators, one after another, spoke eloquently of the testimonial of the two senators, particularly Senator Aminu, asserting the right of the Senate to protect its own.
Senator Abdulazeez Ibrahim, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, was particularly overflowing in his praise of Senator Aminu, observing his committee’s reverence and solicitations of his counsels. He said the committee had engaged the one time education minister as a consultant, albeit an unpaid one, on issues facing the committee.
Irrespective of the hollowness and vulgarity of the insinuations made against the two senators, the enthusiasm of the Senate to debate the issue raised some important questions.
One, why should the Senate consider itself a ground to debate issues that are ordinarily political issues for the senatorial constituencies of the two senators? Secondly, was the issue of more importance than the pending issue of the strike threat raised by civil society and organized labour?
Senator Lee Maeba, arguably, one of the youngest men in the Senate, brought reason to bear on the floor with his suggestion that the issue be taken up at the party caucuses of the two parties. According to him, the Senate caucuses of the two parties to which the senators belong, should take up the matter with their national executives and prevail on the governors to stop the witch-hunt against the two men.
Senator Lawali Shuaibu, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Drugs and Narcotics also attested to the irrelevance of the issue suggesting that the recall threat was only an attempt to smear the two senators.
His plea that the Senate do not lend credibility to the threat was equally thrown overboard as the masterminds of the motion, with the collaboration of the Senate President, Senator Wabara, forged along in a seemingly rehearsed plan.
Not even information from Senator Idris Kuta that the plot against Senator Aminu was unraveling, would dither those bent on seeing that the Senate issued a condemnation against the recall threat and raised a committee to investigate the issue.
Even though the Senate subsequently came round to debate the issue of the fuel hike, the impression of remoteness from the population suggested by the delay it took it to attend to the issue, leaves much to be desired of the representatives of the people.
This remoteness is further expressed by the denial of hunger in the land by Senator Mantu.
Senator Wabara on his part, seems to be in a fit when issues concerning labour come before the Senate.
As the Senate came round to debate the issue of fuel hike last Thursday, the Senate President immediately vacated his seat for Senator Mantu to preside over the issue. His aides said he left the session to attend to a book launch to which he was invited.
Even if disregarding his priority of the book launch over the delicate issue of fuel hike, his scorning of last Friday’s stakeholders’ meeting arranged by the Governors Forum to discuss the issue was revealing.
The invitation letter from Governor Victor Attah, chairman of the Governors Forum, had requested him to lead the Senate leadership to the meeting.
Noting the worrisome relationship between the Federal Government and the Nigeria Labour Congress and the disastrous consequences should the strike action commence as scheduled, Governor Attah had written Wabara saying: “I have, therefore as the chairman of the Governors’ Forum, convened a meeting of the Forum to be attended by the Nigeria Labour Congress and other Stakeholders. In the interest of our fatherland, I plead with you to lead the Leadership of the Senate to attend this meeting.”
Senator Wabara had in turn mandated the Senate leader, Dr. Dalhatu Tafida, to lead the delegation in his stead, an offer Senator Tafida quickly passed on to the chairman of the Senate Committee on Labour, Senator Bassey Ewa Henshaw.
Interestingly, when Senator Wabara passed the baton to Senator Tafida, his deputy, Senator Mantu, had vainly tried to impress it on Senator Wabara of the desirability of him, (Wabara) personally leading the Senate delegation to the stakeholders’ meeting.
An effort by Senator Mohammed Anka, the minority whip, to prolong the matter was brusquely cut off by the Senate President who said he did not want the Senate to debate the invitation letter to him.
Wabara’s intolerance for the NLC by several accounts flows from the Mr. Adams Oshiomhole’s charge of complicity raised against the Senate President during the last Senate crisis.
While many would understand the personal foibles of the Senate President on matters of labour since that episode, it is, however, the opinion of many that with the country set to explode, that the nation’s leaders should be able to put personal interest overboard at this time.
In raking up the empty threat of recall against Senator Aminu ahead of the fuel strike threat and in abandoning the stakeholders’ meeting, the Senate and its leadership have demonstrated a seeming detachment to the plight of the citizenry.
