Certain key events dominated the political space in 2017, enlivening the polity and at some points, even threatening its very core. These events, including but not limited to the heightened agitation for the restructuring of the country; the travail of the former ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); the registration of more political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and its successful conduct of the Anambra governorship election. In the All Progressives Congress (APC), the national chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun proved to be a cat with nine lives, as plot by aggrieved chieftains of the party to remove him at the party National Executive Committee (NEC) failed while former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar left the party, fuelling speculations that more aggrieved chieftains might exit the party. Senior Deputy Editor, TAIWO AMODU and MOSES ALAO capture some of these major events.
PDP: The travail of an ex-ruling party
IT is less than four years ago that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that behemoth of a political party, which prided itself as the largest in Africa, bestrode the Nigerian political landscape like a colossus, as they say. But things have since changed, beginning with its loss of the Presidency and most of the political offices in the 2015 general election. Since then, it has been one trouble after the other for the PDP.
In the outgoing 2017, like the one before it, things were not so favourable for the erstwhile ruling party, as its woes, this time manifesting in the form of a tussle on the national leadership of the party, continued unabated, beginning with a failed attempt to hold an elective National Convention on May 21 in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State. From the venue of the botched convention, where Senator Ahmed Makarfi was appointed to head a National Caretaker Committee for the party, the party headed straight into an unforgettable and unprecedented legal battle that took it right to the edge of a political precipice. The legal battle, which split the party into two unequal factions led by the Makarfi-led caretaker committee and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was appointed sometimes back to manage the affairs of the party until the conduct of a National Convention, was heated and fierce.
An attempt by the party to conduct another convention in August also failed, as the legal embers kindled by the failed Port-Harcourt convention grew into a furnace, with Justice Okon Abang of Federal High Court, Abuja, feeding the fire with petroleum.
The judge had, a day before the convention slated to hold in Port-Harcourt and expected to end the party’s travail, gave a ruling barring the Independent National Electoral Commission and security agencies to stay away from the convention.
The battle had raged, with each sides brandishing different court orders and celebrating varying victories, until it reached the apex court. But for the Supreme Court, which appeared at the last minute in a move akin to what literature aficionados refer to as deux machina, the declaration of one of the biggest beneficiaries of the PDP and former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo that the party was dead and its soul buried would have come to pass.
The year restructuring music played on and on
Like the lyrics of the popular song of the Basement Jaxx, an English music group, Red Alert, “Red Alert Everybody! It’s a catastrophe. But don’t worry! Don’t panic! Ain’t nothing going on but history yeah! And the music keeps on playing on and on,” one of the songs that played on and on in the Nigerian political space in 2017 was that of restructuring. Indeed, the restructuring song became a red alert from some quarters, especially from the Southern part of the country, where it is believed that restructuring holds the key to the survival of the Nigeria project.
For most of the year, Nigerians from different ethnic groups, political leanings and walks of life joined the discourse on restructuring, taking different sides and offering different suggestions on how the country could be restructured and what it would gain from so doing. So loud was the song on restructuring that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was forced to beat a retreat on its earlier position and the stance of the Presidency that restructuring was not the problem with the country. The ruling party, indeed, convened consultative meetings across the geopolitical zones to collate the views of Nigerians on the restructuring subject.
Therefore, as the curtain draws on 2017, it is clear that the restructuring music will keep on playing on and on in the New Year and even beyond.
And the 1999 constitution got a major facelift
In 2017, in what was as adjudged as the most far-reaching amendments to the 1999 Constitution in the last 18 years, the Senate passed 33 legislative proposals, while the House of Representatives, in July 2017, concurred with 21 of those proposals while rejecting 12.
The proposed amendments, which included authorisation of budgetary expenditure; devolution of legislative powers to the states; financial autonomy for state legislature; democratic existence, funding and tenure of local government; presidential assent of bills; independent candidature and time frame for submitting of names of ministerial/commissioners nominees, submission of their portfolios and 35 per cent affirmative action for women as ministers and commissioners, among others.
The proposed amendments have since been transmitted to the 36 states Houses of Assembly, with two-thirds of the Assemblies expected to ratify the amendments before they could be passed.
INEC registers more parties
Ahead of forthcoming general elections in 2019, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under the leadership of Professor Mahmoud Yakubu increased the number of political parties in the country to 67. On June 7, it announced the registration of five new political parties, bringing the number of parties to 46. Announcing the decision at a late evening press briefing in Kaduna, INEC commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education, Solomon Soyebi, said the associations met the requirements for registration, while two associations, which had earlier applied for registration as political parties, voluntarily withdrew their applications.
The new associations registered as political parties by the electoral commission were Young Progressive Party, (YPP); Advanced People’s Democratic Alliance, (APDA); New Generation Party of Nigeria, (NGPN); All Democratic People’s Movement of Nigeria, ADPMN, and Action Democratic Party, ADP.
The Commission, on December 14, increased the number to 67 when it announced registration of additional 21 political parties. The INEC National Commissioner and member, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mrs. May Agbmuche-Mbu, who made the disclosure in a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja, revealed the new parties to include, All Blending Party (ABP), All Grassroots
Alliance (AGA), Alliance for New Nigeria (ANN), Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) and Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). The list also include, among others, Modern Democratic Party (MDP), National
Interest Party (NIP), National Rescue Mission (NRM), New Progressive Movement (NPM), Nigeria Democratic Congress Party (NDCP), People’s Alliance for National Development and Liberty (PANDEL), People’s Trust (PT), Providence People’s Congress (PPC), Re-Build Nigeria Party (RBNP), Restoration Party of Nigeria (RP) and Sustainable National Party (SNP).
Also in the outgoing year, INEC, on November 18, 2017, conducted a governorship election in Anambra State, which was adjudged to be transparent and peaceful despite initial threat by a separatist movement, the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) calling for a boycott of the exercise and also threatening to disrupt the process.
At the end of the exercise, the incumbent governor of Anambra, Willie Obiano, was declared winner by INEC, having scored a total vote of 234,071. From the results, Tony Nwoye of the APC came second with 98,752 votes; Oseloka Obaze of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came third with 70,593 votes; Godwin Ezeemo of Progressives Peoples Alliance came fourth with 29,787 votes while Osita Chidoka of the United Progressives Party (UPP) scored 7,903 votes to take the emerge fifth.
Senate/ INEC faceoff over CVR
INEC’s Continuous Voter Registration (CVR), which it commenced late April to upgrade the voter register ahead of the next general election almost set it on collision path with the National Assembly.
The Senators had, last July, kicked against the adoption of local government unlike wards as registration units. Apparently unimpressed by the commission’s performance, the federal lawmakers squealed against the present arrangement of registration at local government areas, as against the ward levels.
The Red Chamber, in its resolutions, which were sequel to a motion entitled “The Continued Voters Registration Exercise, Matters Arising,” sponsored by the Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, mandated its committee on INEC to monitor the exercise and report progress and challenges periodically to the upper legislative chamber.
Senator Akpabio, while leading a debate on the motion, noted that INEC commenced a nationwide Continued Voter Registration exercise on April 12 in all its offices in the 774 local government areas throughout the federation instead of ward level.
The former governor of Akwa Ibom State, however, observed that “the exercise has been faced with several challenges across the country, which include malfunctioning of the direct data capture machines; non-availability of the machines in some local government areas; slowness of the data capturing machine; inadequate manpower and inaccessibility of registration centres from prospective registrants, especially those residing in the rural areas.”
He further submitted that the challenges facing the exercise were worse in states like Akwa Ibom, Anambra and Osun where only 30 voters were registered per day in each local government with over 20 wards. Senator Akpabio further expressed concern that the poor manner the exercise was being handled could undermine the credibility of the Osun State governorship election fixed for June 2018.
He said “the inability of the Federal Government to effectively address the challenges of the registration exercise can lead to disenfranchisement of voters, which could result in serious voter apathy that may render the 2019 general election unacceptable, not credible and undemocratic.”
INEC’s national chairman, Professor Yakubu, in his reaction in Kaduna during a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC), premised INEC’s preference for local council on poor funding of the commission.
He declared that his commission decided to deploy the CVR exercise at the local government level because it is the only affordable option that could be accommodated within its current budgetary allocation, disclosing that while N1.2 billion would have been required every day to pay allowances of ad-hoc staff, the total budgetary provision for CVR in 2017 budget, included rerun and tenure elections, by-elections and general elections is N1.2 billion this year.
He said: “The total budgetary provision for CVR in 2017 budget including all the rerun and tenure elections, bye-elections and general elections is N1.2 billion this year. So all the money available in the budget is barely enough to pay for the cost of personnel for one day, assuming we deployed at Polling Units level and that does not include security.”
Senator Melaye’s fate hangs in the balance?
Senator representing Kogi West Senatorial District, Dino Melaye ran into troubled waters in his home state. As part of the orchestrated plot for his recall, certain individuals who claimed to be from Kogi West senatorial district stormed the INEC national secretariat, with a written petition signed by people from Senator Melaye’s constituent, asking for his recall and further demanding that the electoral body should initiate the process.
The petitioners had gathered 188,588 signatures out of the 360,098 registered voters in Kogi West, representing 52 per cent and taken same in ‘Ghana-must-Go’ bags to INEC, demanding that the electoral body continue with the processes towards recalling the senator. In a desperate move to frustrate the process, however, the embattled senator had, last July, approached a Federal High Court in Abuja with an ex-parte motion asking the court to stop the INEC from continuing with his recall process.
In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/587/2017, with INEC as the only defendant, Melaye faulted the recall process, saying it was tainted with political malice and initiated by his political enemies. In the originating Summons he filed through his lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, (SAN) the embattled lawmaker prayed the court to declare that the petition presented to INEC for his recall was illegal, unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional, invalid, null and void and of no effect in law. He also prayed the court for a declaration that the petition purportedly forwarded to the INEC was invalid and of no effect, the same being signed by fictitious, dead and none existing persons in his senatorial district, as well as for an order of injunction restraining INEC from commencing or further continuing or completing the process of his recall. His motion was however struck out by Justice John Tsoho.
On September 10, 2017, a Federal High Court in Abuja equally dismissed the application by Senator Dino Melaye challenging moves by INEC to effect his recall. Justice Nnamdi Dimgba held that all the complaints made by Melaye lack merit and deserve to be dismissed. On the complain of lack of fair hearing by the constituents before forwarding the recall petition to INEC, the judge said it lacked merit and dismissed it. Justice Dimgba ruled that the recall process is a political question, which is beyond the court to deal with. He further pronounced that the constituents have no duty to serve the legislator a copy of the recall petition.
He said Melaye has the opportunity to campaign to the electorate before the referendum to sell his achievements to them according to the 90 days’ time table and schedule of activities set by INEC as set out in Section 69 of the Constitution.
The judge dismissed Melaye’s claim that the petition emanated from malice, bad faith, vendetta and against the natural justice. He also dismissed the senator’s assertion that the 188, 000 signatories to the petition contained those of non-existent, dead and forged,” stressing that the complaint was hasty since he has not exhausted the INEC verification process for the signatories.
The judge described Melaye’s complain that officials of the electoral umpire ought to swear to an oath of neutrality as “premature” since it is not certain that a recall election will hold.
The judge however ordered INEC to serve Melaye the recall petition, schedule of signatures attached to the recall petition and full list of all persons in support of the recall process as contained in jute bags before the verification exercise.
Oyegun survives
Before the ruling APC held its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting last October, plot to sack its national chairman, Odigie Oyegun was rife. According to media reports, the former Edo state governor had stalemated meeting of the statutory organ of the party to ward off the speculated impeachment plot. But at the end of the national caucus and NEC meetings, leaders of the party led by President Muhammadu Buhari passed a vote of confidence in the National Working Committee led by Odigie Oyegun. His tenure terminates first quarter of 2018, as he assumed office in 2014.
Atiku dumps APC, rejoins PDP
Former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, last November resigned his membership of the ruling APC. Atiku premised his action on what he called arbitrariness and lack of due process in the party.
His letter of resignation addressed to no one read in part: “While other parties have purged themselves of the arbitrariness and unconstitutionality that led to fractionalisation, the All Progressives Congress has adopted those same practices and even gone beyond them to institute a regime of a draconian clampdown on all forms of democracy within the party and the government it produced.”
Atiku has since returned to the erstwhile ruling party, the PDP.
The PDP convention of unity list
Following the Supreme Court judgment of July 2017, which resolved the leadership crisis that rocked the PDP for months, the PDP gained the needed confidence to rebuild, fixing an elective convention for early December.
Typical of elective conventions, members of the party threw their hats into the ring to contest for different party positions on offer; with permutations and discussions on who would become the national chairman of the embattled opposition party dominating political discourses for weeks. Though the national leadership zoned the post to the South, many people had talked of micro-zoning and the need for the South-West to produce the national chairman of the party for the time. Former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Olabode George; former Minister of Education, Professor Tunde Adeniran; former governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Ladoja; former governor of Ogun State, Chief Gbenga Daniel and Mr Jimi Agbaje, among others, had joined the race, leading to insinuations that the South-West might fail to clinch the position due to multiplicity of aspirants. Though the development led to suggestions that the region should prune down the number of aspirants; the dynamics of the race changed, with Prince Uche Secondus from the South-South joining the race and becoming the clear favourite to win the seat.
At the party’s National Convention held on December 9, Secondus went ahead to win the election but not without protestations from the like of Professor Adeniran and Professor Taoheed Adedoja, with the latter heading to the court to challenge the outcome of the convention. The main bone of contention at the convention, which was dogged by lists of different nomenclatures containing the names of aspirants for different party positions, was the alleged hijacking of posts by governors and their cronies.
Buhari, PDP presidential aspirants and the 2019 blues
Also in the outgoing year, President Muhammadu Buhari seemed to have given a hint on his intention to contest the 2019 presidential election. The president, who had been tactical about 2019, despite the declaration of loyalty by governors and endorsement of his candidature by members of the party in some states, appeared to have let the cat out of the bag in Cote d’Ivoire while addressing Nigerians in the country, when he said: “This is why I came along with them [governors] so that when we are going to meet you, when you are going to meet the rest of Nigerians, if you tell them that their governors were in the company of the president, I think that will be another vote for me in the future. I’m very pleased that they were able to turn up,” Mr. Buhari said to thunderous laughter and clapping by the audience.”
The president had also, during a two-day working visit to Kano State, few weeks ago, reiterated the hint to seek a second term in 2019 by saying that “I’m overwhelmed by the sea of heads I see, and by what I see today, if elections are contested, I have no doubt I will win it. I know the elections. If they are to be free and fair, if it is a question of numbers, if it is a question of allowing people to make their choice, then I think the people of Kano are in my pocket.”
Apart from the president, other aspirants eyeing the number one position in the land, especially in the major opposition party, the PDP, did not allow 2017 to slip by without giving Nigerians an inkling regarding their intention to lead the country. From former Vice-President Abubakar to former Governors Ahmed Makarfi, Sule Lamido and Ibrahim Shekarau to Governor Ayodele Fayose, presidential aspiration in the PDP had begun to climb its way to the top of the ladder of political discourse. While Atiku’s reentry into the PDP was seen as a game-changer for those interested in the Presidency, the other individuals have, in the outgoing year, begun moves to actualise the ambition. Elsewhere outside the PDP, the name of former Kano State governor, Rabiu Kwankwanso continued to pop up whenever discussions on the 2019 Presidency were raised in the outgoing year.
Other major issues included the discovery of billions of Naira in different locations across the country and subsequent forfeiture of such to the Federal Government, with the discovery in Ikoyi Apartment, Lagos, leading to the sack of the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Mr Ayo Oke. The probe, suspension and eventual sack of the Secretary to the Federal Government, Mr Babachir Lawal; the declaration by Fayose and the PDP in Ekiti State that the deputy governor of the state, Professor Olusola Eleka, would succeed Fayose and the criticisms that followed it; the massive sack of teachers in Kaduna State over alleged failure of competency test; periodic attacks by members of the Boko Haram sect in Borno and Adamawa states, among others, also created sparks in the polity in the year 2017.
While it might not be easy to chronicle all the key events that shaped the outgoing year, worthy of mention are the swearing-in of Justice Walter Onnoghen as the first Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) of Southern Nigeria extraction in over 30 years; the silent wars in the APC, in which Kwankwanso and his successor, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje in Kano; Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai and Senator Shehu Sani, are major actors and the political realignments in Oyo State.