In the previous essay I blamed President Obasanjo for not doing what God
told him as the ONLY solution to the lingering political problems afflicting the
country since 1993. Chief
Obasanjo told the Nigerian people and the world on June 20, 1998 at the Baptist
Church Abeokuta (Sermon on Olumo Rock) that God told him when he was in the
Abacha’s Gulag that the Nigerian problems could ONLY be resolved through one
modality. He told Nigerians
that would be the “get together of patriotic men and women of goodwill”,
which others call the Sovereign
National Conference (SNC).
He did not say that God told him that he as the President alone or
with the National Assembly would be a solution to the impasse.
Why did President Obasanjo fail to allow God’s word to pass as soon as
he became the President is the source of the problems he brought on the country
since 1999. President Obasanjo, a Christian for that matter should
be reminded by the Christian organizations rallying round him today as if the
crisis is a Christian-Muslim crisis that God’s Words are never in vain.
This is where the Christian organizations are not
helping the President.
May I still plead with President Obasanjo as I have been doing since 2000
that the application of God’s Words as prophesied by him
on June 20, 1998 is still the ONLY way out of the impasse.
This is a continuation of the essay.
I shall try to pinpoint the source of the crisis, that it is not just
President or the National Assembly but of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
that is failing since 1999 to perform the function of a political party.
The ongoing crisis in Nigeria should be seen as part of or the by-product
of the crisis of governance
that has root within the ruling political party, the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP). I came to this
conclusion because of the bizarre twist to what we find today. What
started, as the unanimous action of the members of the House of Representatives
calling on the President to resign or be impeached soon became an all PDP
affair.
The world and the country were waiting for the next action on the receipt
of the response of the President. The
President did communicate his response to the House charges followed by the
President’s address to the nation.
At what stage did the matter degenerate into a PDP affair?
What we are reading of in the press and raising the political temperature
in Nigeria and in the world are no more about the original charges.
The original action of the entire members of the House of Representatives
has now degenerated into charges of wrong doings by the PDP caucus in the House
of Representatives against the PDP President.
There is another development in the bizarre twist in the matter.
The charges against the PDP President are now routed through the National
Chairman of the PDP to the PDP President for onward transmission to the
President. When and how does
the National Chairman of the PDP become part of the process?
Is he provided for in the Constitution of the Party or of the country?
What is the role of the National Chairman of PDP in the original act?
How does he become critical in the new action of the House of
Representatives? How do we
review all these in the context of the Constitution?
PRESIDENT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN INSTITUTION
What is disturbing is that Nigeria is dealing with a President that does
not believe in the institutions of political parties and the National Assembly.
Nigeria is dealing with a President that does not believe in the efficacy
of the political parties. A
President that does see the National Assembly as a check on the executive leads
Nigeria. Yet we are expecting
the same President to respond to the charges against him by the House of
Representatives through the National Chairman of the PDP.
The Constitution does not provide for this kind of accusation and counter
accusation. The Nigerian
Constitution makes no room for the National Chairman of the PDP.
Isn’t the country dealing with jokers?
Not that I agree with President Obasanjo; the way the matter is being
handled maybe that is why President Obasanjo called the original action of the
House of Representatives a joke carried too far.
If the original action of the House of Representative was a joke carried
too far, what do we call the action of the PDP
caucus in the House of Representatives today other than a huge joke?
Does the action of the PDP caucus not convey the impression that the PDP is dead and
should be dissolved? Why
should the President deal with the rump of the members of the House of
Representatives calling itself the PDP caucus? This is the situation Nigeria
finds itself today.
PDP
CONTROLS BOTH ELECTIVE ARMS IN NAME
It should be noted that the two elective arms of the government, the
President and the National Assembly are both on the ticket of the PDP.
By the time the National Assembly was constituted, the President was just
getting to know who he would be working with if he received the nomination of
the party. They have been
strangers to one another since 1999.
The President made no attempt to know the PDP members of the National
Assembly.
From the beginning, the President was more comfortable with the non-PDP
members of the National Assembly. This
is why he relies more on the non-PDP members of the National Assembly,
especially in the Senate to do his business.
This is why he is able to mobilize the non-PDP Senators to install the
PDP President and remove the one he does not like.
In the National Assembly the PDP members constitute the opposition party
in the President.
Could one imagine that the PDP that has over 2/3 of both Chambers of the
National Assembly and produced the President can not deliver the goods?
From the beginning, the legislative process defies all known rules in the
textbook in terms of organization and administration.
The only description of the process is anything but chaotic since 1999.
The National Assembly blames its weakness on the executive interference
in the National Assembly. Why
should the President not interfere in the National Assembly when the PDP
leadership in the National Assembly could not put its home in order since 1999?
In fact, the non-PDP members especially of the Senate are more
influential than the PDP members.
Take a look at the leadership of both Chambers.
The House of Representatives was the first culprit with the way it
decided on the election of a Speaker with fake qualifications.
The next was the Senate that suffered leadership crisis for the best part
of the first three years.
The governmental process as we have it today is what could be called the crisis
of governance. The
crisis is caused by the lack of the required link between the President and the
National Assembly that should have come through the political party, the PDP.
The crisis is further compounded by the lack of boundary on rulers called
the Constitution.
From the way the legislative process has been carried on since 1999, one
should come to the conclusion that the PDP has no program to which both the
President and the PDP members in the National Assembly are committed.
This is one source of the problems we have since 1999.
The PDP even though said to be in control of most states in the
federation, most of the State branches are in factions and the party has not
been able to organize a successful National Convention since 1999.
How is the PDP going to organize the presidential nomination primaries?
These are the issues that should be looked into in the ongoing face off
between President Obasanjo and the National Assembly.
ALLEGED
BREACHES: BY-PRODUCT OF CRISIS OF GOVERNANCE
All the breaches itemized by the National Assembly are the by-products of
the crisis of governance that cannot be attributed to the
President alone. It would
appear that the various interest groups involved in the crisis between the
National Assembly and the President are basing their action on the 2003.
Nigeria is made to suffer a “Second-Term” syndrome.
It should be obvious that if the President had not indicated his
intention to seek a second term, the PDP members of the National Assembly would
not have remembered that there were breaches since 1999.
The PDP members of the National Assembly are extending their crisis to
paralyze the functioning of the federation.
The Federal government, the state government and the local government are
hurting from the actions of the PDP members of the National Assembly in their
dealing with the PDP President. Why
do they want to use the instrumentality of the PDP nomination process to deal
with their President?
The PDP President is yet to come to the party for a second term
nomination. Why are the
PDP doing what they doing today? Maybe this is why the former President, Alhaji Shehu
Shagari calls the action of the National Assembly too late in the day.
I share this view too. Let
me ask some pertinent questions.
(a)
Where were the Members of the National Assembly when the President
committed all the itemized breaches since 1999?
(b)
What would the various interest involved in the current crisis have done,
if the President had initiated action in furtherance of what God told him in
Abacha’s Gulag?
(c)
What would the various interest groups have done, if he had not come
against what he agreed with his sponsors?
(d)
What would the PDP Members of the National Assembly have done if
President Obasanjo had NOT decided to seek a second term contrary to what he
agreed with his sponsors?
IMPEACHMENT
NOT FOR RESOLVING CRISIS OF GOVERNANCE
To me and to those who understand the working of Nigerian government
since 1999, the breaches arose from the crisis
of governance. They
are not from moral turpitude on the part of the President that warrants
impeachment in the Constitution. Impeachment
is not supposed to deal with the crisis of governance.
It arose from a failure of the different parts of the Federal government
to work together.
Those who are talking of impeachment loosely today were not privy to the
thoughts of the founding fathers of Presidential System through the 1979
Constitution that is still the 1999 Constitution.
I can claim to belong to the Founding Fathers of the Presidential System
that first introduced the concept of impeachment into the Nigerian Constitution.
Reading the comments of the members of the National Assembly, my counsel
to the PDP caucus of the National Assembly is that they would need a crash
course on the “Politics of Impeachment”.
They should start with the reading of the Proceedings of the Constituent
Assembly 1977/78. It is a
pity that the members of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) misapplied that
“rare medicine” during the Second Republic to interfere with the democratic
process in Kaduna. It would
appear that the same force is at work again.
What they should realize is that impeachment is a “rare medicine”
never anticipated for breaches that arise from the
crisis of governance.
Impeachment is for dealing with “moral turpitude” and fundamental
breaches of the Constitution.
When the National Assembly said that President Obasanjo acted in breach
of the Constitution, one would ask the question, which Constitution?
Both the President and the National Assembly ran for election without the
Constitution that would have spelled out the boundaries on the President and on
the National Assembly.
Again I blame President and the members of the National Assembly who
sought office without knowing their powers and functions.
They were too eager to be in office and not knowing under what conditions
they would be working.
It should be noted that the military Head of State, General Abdulsalami
Abubakar handed them with a Constitution the day they were sworn in.
The same President and members of the National Assembly failed to allow
Nigerians since then to give a Constitution to themselves through a National
Conference. It is sad that
that the members of the National Assembly sought and won election under a
situation where there was no clear delineation of power between the President
and the National Assembly through a Constitution are now citing breaches of the
same Constitution. The
President and the National Assembly are victims of what they
ignored since 1999.
WHO
TO BLAME? NOT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OR PRESIDENT BUT PDP.
It will be unfair to lay on the lap of President Obasanjo alone the fall
out from the crisis of governance.
The National Assembly did not know its functions as these were not known
to the candidates who were seeking elections in 1998.
The National Assembly failed to do its work right from the day it was
constituted from May 1999 up till now.
One needs to go back to the first action of the Senate with respect to
the processing of Ministers and Ambassadors for the President.
The Senate failed in its elementary duty of “advice and consent”
under the Constitution with respect to the appointment of Ministers and
Ambassadors. Instead of looking at the nominees one by one
considering their qualifications with the functions they were to perform, the
Senate set a precedent of approving a list of nominees for the President.
On the budget, the National Assembly failed from the first day to fight
for its right. The National Assembly was cowed into believing
that the National Assembly has no right to vary by adding or subtracting to what
the President submits to the National Assembly.
The oversight function of
the National Assembly under which the specific Committees of the National
Assembly would have been calling members of the Executive to account for their
actions is the least developed.
Of course, the power of investigation under Sections 88 and 89 of the
Constitution is hardly understood. All
the so-called breaches could have been dealt with under the enormous power the
National Assembly possesses under Sections 88 and 89 of the Constitution, if the
National Assembly understood its powers and functions.
It is sad that no minister has since 1999 been called to account for his
actions since 1999. No
successful investigation has been conducted since 1999.
The public has not been brought into the work of the National Assembly.
All these would have enhanced its oversight and investigative power of
the National Assembly. All the charges of breaches would not have occurred.
Who to blame in the ongoing crisis of governance.
It is certainly not the National Assembly as an institution; it is not
the Presidency as an institution. Undergirding
both is the political party, called the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that is
in factions and unable to govern. The
root cause of the crisis is the inability to agree on how to share the patronage
of government. One recalls
the President Obasanjo’s address to the PDP Convention in 2001 where he made
some profound appreciation of the PDP in terms of its raison deter.
He on that occasion told the country what he thought of the PDP as “a
dynamic amalgam of interest groups”.
He went on:
And
what has held us together, if any at all, it is that our party
is no party and there is a strong expectation of patronage.
President Obasanjo saw the PDP more in terms as an instrument of
transition than an instrument of governing.
He put it this way:
At best, it could be
said that we are a movement
whose singular achievement has been our ability to weather
the difficult and challenging transition process
from military rule to democracy and emerging victorious.
This
view of the PDP by President Obasanjo is also shared by the other party leaders.
The SpPeaker characterizes the leadership of the PDP as lacking in focus
and the PDP as an instrument that would not be able to sustain democratic
values. Even the new Chairman brought by President with the
hope of developing a party is frustrated.
He calls the PDP “a rally and not a party afterall”. See This Day Saturday,
Spetember 7, 2002.
The National Chairman of the party does not command the kind of respect
that one usually associates with party Chairmen in the past for obvious reasons.
ALLEGED
BREACHES ARE FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP
Looking through the list of alleged breaches, they could be grouped into
five categories, which are
(a)
The appointment of certain officers without the approval of the Senate;
(b)
The reorganization of the Executive arm of government without the
appropriate legislation or in utter disregard of the preexisting legislation;
(c)
The spending of unbudgeted money or engaging in extra-budgetary spending;
(d)
The use of the army in civil unrest with out the approval of the National
Assembly; and
(e)
The failure to implement the budget of four years to the letter in
a row (1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002).
One could then ask the following questions:
1.
Where
was the National Assembly when President Obasanjo paid unbudgeted money to
Julius Berger, Ghana, ID Card project National Stadium, etc.?
2.
Where
was the National Assembly when the President dispatched soldiers to Odi in 1999
and Benue in 2002?
3.
Where
was the National Assembly when the President refused to implement the approved
Budget in 1999?
4.
Why
did the National Assembly proceed to approve subsequent budget in 2002 Budget
when the Budget of 1999, 2000 and 2001 were not implemented?
5.
Are
they just realizing these infractions?
The foregoing is a failure of leadership on the part of both the
President and the National Assembly.
More too it arises from the failure of the governmental process involving
the formal process of government involving the Executive and the Legislative and
the informal process involving the political parties and other interest groups
in society.
Nigeria is afflicted with the failure of the party system and the
impotence of civil societies. These
two bodies still remain rudimentary since 1999.
Now that the PDP as a center no longer can hold with things falling
apart, the crisis of governance how would the other parties respond?
There is no evidence that yet the other political parties are picking up
the challenge. This further
aggravates the apprehension about the 2003.
The next and concluding essay shall be devoted to what
should be done to get of the impasse.