Tambuwal: The Thing Around the PDP’s Neck By Waziri Adio

Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal seems to have perfected the art of putting the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a strange place. To be sure, the behemoth has always had what could be termed the House problem. Even when it boasted of overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives, PDP had difficulties imposing its will on the green chamber. At a time, the House became the principal site of opposition to a PDP-controlled executive and nearly initiated impeachment proceedings against a president from the same party as the majority of its members. However, PDP always managed to muddle through its House problem. Until Tambuwal happened.

Last Tuesday, Tambuwal eventually defected to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) and kept his seat as Speaker, making history, by default, as the first member of a minority party to lead the House since 1999, putting his former party, by design, at a disadvantage, and elbowing PDP, by design or default, into a very unusual territory. Long used to being the aggressor and to always having its way, the ruling party is finding it difficult to fashion a coherent response even when this defection had long been foretold. This is the latest episode of a stubborn problem, the Tambuwal Problem, that PDP has not been able to get its head around. The ruling party has been bumped to a strange spot where internal contradiction intersects with comeuppance. For the past three years, Tambuwal has been the albatross around PDP’s neck. Or, if you will, the fishbone in PDP’s throat.

The first instalment of this nagging problem occurred on June 6, 2011 and in a way foreshadowed what is unfolding at the moment. That day, Tambuwal got elected as Speaker against the wishes of PDP, his party and the party with a clear majority in the House at that time. Right in front of PDP’s enforcer-emeritus, Chief Tony Anenih, and an illustrious supporting cast that included Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and then National Chairman of PDP, Dr. Haliru Bello, Tambuwal trounced PDP’s preferred candidate for the position of Speaker, Hon. Mulikat Adeola-Akande, by 252 to 90 votes. It was more than a body blow to PDP, which had zoned the position of the Speaker to the South-west and had left no one in doubt who its anointed was. But Tambuwal was able to snap 70% of the votes because he rallied a broad coalition that included independent-minded and the disaffected members of PDP and members of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). While it is true that ACN played a critical role in Tambuwal’s emergence, it is also true that ACN merely exploited the fact that PDP was unable to keep its house in order and had advertised itself as a party where agreements, even when documented, count for little.

The hypocrisy of the party on its own zoning formula (especially the blatant denial of the existence of any zoning formula) not only undermined the party’s ability to enforce zoning in the House, it provided an opportunity for a fight-back from the North, which was still smarting from how it was muscled out by incumbency and which, on account of numbers, has an edge in the House. Also in the coalition that brought Tambuwal to power were House members opposed to the idea of their leadership being imposed from outside and the camp of the previous Speaker, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, that felt it was being persecuted for not playing ball in a particular way during the crisis occasioned by the sickness of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

But Tambuwal became a lingering problem to PDP not merely on account of how he emerged but largely on account of how the party hierarchy and the executive responded to his emergence. With its preferred candidate winning only 25% of the votes on offer, PDP should have made a ‘tactical manoeuvre’. But so much time was wasted on thinking of how to discipline those who had the effrontery to disobey the party’s order and so much effort was invested in how to freeze out and impeach the Speaker. Used to winning all the time, PDP obviously found (and still finds) it difficult to know when a battle is lost and is not disposed to the strategic imperative of conceding a battle to win the war. A more pragmatic approach would have been to reconcile the aggrieved and court the House ‘dissidents’, especially given that it is easier to elect a Speaker than to remove one (simple majority is needed for the election of the Speaker and two-thirds needed for his removal).

Maybe PDP and the Presidency would have taken a different track on how to approach the Tambuwal Problem had APC been on the scene in 2011 and maybe Tambuwal would have remained in PDP had his state governor not defected to APC. These are counter-factuals and it is difficult to know what would have been. But harassed and alienated and forever grateful for the not-so-small role that ACN played in his emergence and not indisposed to a presidential ticket being dangled before him by some opposition leaders, Tambuwal was only bidding his time in PDP.  On Tuesday, he eventually jumped ship after what looked like an eternity of hide-and-seek.

Tambuwal’s imminent defection had been a well-known open-secret, but it is devastating to PDP nonetheless, perhaps more devastating than the first time he wrong-footed the party. At issue here is not just losing a seat to an opposing party, but losing the presiding officer of the House and the fourth highest elected officer in the country to another party without recourse to election or the numerical strength of the parties in the House. PDP has every reason to be aggrieved, especially now that APC has by default secured the bragging right of owning the presiding officer of the House. At the end of the day (and except more PDP members defect to APC after failing to secure return tickets), what APC has gained might not be more than a mere bragging right. And beyond ego and symbolism, PDP might not have really lost much. This is because even a Speaker who is fully in charge of the House is just a first among equals. He cannot force his wishes or those of his party on the House. Also, it is inconceivable that a House with even APC in the majority can afford to frustrate presidential initiatives and risk to be cast, in an election year, as the enemy of progress and of the people. It is precisely for these two reasons that PDP should pursue its legitimate grievance in a way that will not compound its problem or turn the party, wittingly or unwittingly, into a systemic risk.

There are moral, political and legal options available to PDP on the Tambuwal issue. The ruling party has initiated the moral option by asking Tambuwal to do the ‘honourable’ thing. But there are two problems with pursuing the moral argument. One, it is merely an appeal to an individual’s sense of right and wrong, and not enforceable except through societal sanctions. Clearly, Tambuwal would have weighed the moral consequences of his action before opting to keep his seat as the Speaker. Two, there is the no-so-small matter of moral justification of the aggrieved. Having been the major beneficiary of defections in the past, PDP is not standing on firm moral grounds here. Dr. Wahab Dosumu (Lagos), Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe (Lagos) and Senator Gbenga Ogunniya (Ondo) defected from the Alliance for Democracy (AD) to PDP in 2002. That same year, Senator Arthur Nzeribe (Imo), Senator John Nwanunu (Abia) and Senator Usman Kadir (Kogi) defected from the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to PDP. Senator Musiliu Obanikoro (Lagos) defected from AD to PDP in December 2004. Also, before the recent gale of defections, many governors had moved to PDP after being elected through other parties, especially in Abia, Bauchi, Imo, Jigawa, Kebbi and Zamfara States. All were welcome by PDP with fanfare and all kept their seats.

The second option is political, which is for PDP to use its strength in the House to impeach Tambuwal. Unfortunately, this is a non-option as PDP needs two-thirds (240 votes), which it doesn’t have and all Tambuwal needs to stay on is a third plus one (121 votes), which his new party, APC, has in excess of. Attempts to reconvene the House and elect a new Speaker without impeaching the existing one will be an ill-advised invitation to a legislative anarchy that could lead to government shut-down. Therefore, the only real option before PDP is the legal one and on this it has to either wait for or approach the courts. The Section 68 (1) (g) of the Constitution which says a defecting member must lose his/her seat also allows the defector to keep the seat if there is division in his/her party. Since Tambuwal has clung to this caveat, there is need for judicial interpretation, which PDP has the locus to seek. If it succeeds in court, this will be double victory for PDP as it will have a chance of reclaiming both the legislative seat and the office of the Speaker. Until then, it should take its Tambuwal Problem on the chin.

Kites are being flown about the right of the president to intervene because he swore to uphold the constitution.  This is a disingenuous and dangerous exploration. The Speaker is not an employee of the president and, under our laws, the president has no powers to decide when a position is vacant in the legislative arm. And most important, the president does not have the powers to interpret the constitution. That’s the realm of the judiciary. The issue at hand is squarely a constitutional one. As frustrating as the Tambuwal Problem might be to PDP and the Presidency, resorting to self-help will not only violate fundamental constitutional principles about separation of powers and the rule of law but could also set in motion a series of actions that might put the entire system at risk.