Bye, bye 2018, year of division in senate

As 2018 rolls away in few hours to come, the Senate like other political institutions in the polity, experienced all manner of fireworks within and without which culminated into strong division among senators. Taiye Odewale chronicles them.


Cantankerous beginning
Though the 8th Senate under the bipartisan leadership of Senators Bukola Saraki as President and Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy President, took off as a divided house on the 9th of June 2015 when it was inaugurated but from 2016 up to January this year, it was more of a united house before the issue of reordering of sequence of elections in 2019 put its members asunder in February along the line of pro and anti President Muhammadu Buhari ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Precisely on Wednesday, 14th February this year, after the adoption of the first version of the 2010 Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill  2018 , 10 out of about 66 senators on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), walked out of the chamber of the Senate to register their displeasure with the inclusion of section 25(1) of the bill which sought to reorder sequence of elections in 2019 against the earlier ones announced by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmud Yakubu in October , 2017.


Confused sequence
While the INEC chairman, in his own proposed sequence of  elections as empowered by relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), fixed that of the  President and the  National Assembly elections for Saturday February 16, 2019 and gubernatorial and State Houses of Assembly elections for March, 2, 2019, the Senate in the electoral bill, which was adopted by the House of Representatives, split the sequence into three segments of National Assembly elections coming first, governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections following and   Presidential election last.
A proposal that made 10  out of the 66 APC senators in the senate then, stormed out of the chamber to address the press against it. 
Though the 10 senators were led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu (APC Nasarawa West) at the briefing, but submissions made by Senator Ovie Omo  Agege (APC Delta central) that the proposal was targeted at President Muhammadu Buhari and would never see the light of the day  angered the Senate to the point of  slamming suspension on him for 180 legislative days through a resolution to that effect in the first week of March.
One hell of suspension and mace theft
Omo- Agege’s suspension which was later quashed at a Federal High Court in Abuja, not only led to the formation of Parliamentary Support Group for President Muhammadu Buhari in the Senate led by Senator Abdullahi Adamu but also resulted into the mace theft saga of Wednesday, April 18, 2018.


In fact, on the day of mace theft, Omo – Agege, while still widely believed to be on suspension, came into the Senate’s hallowed chamber the same time the invaders who stole the mace carried out their operation and refused to leave the chamber thereafter when challenged by some senators, on the strength of support given to him by pro Buhari Senators like Abdullahi Adamu , Abu Ibrahim, Ali Ndume, Nelson Effiong, Benjamin Uwajumogu etc .
Little wonder that as a divided house, efforts made by the leadership of the Senate and by extension, that of the National Assembly to nail Senator Omo- Agege on the mace theft incident , proved abortive as Senators belonging to the Parliamentary Support Group ( PSG) for President Muhammadu Buhari and the Police frustrated it .
While Omo- Agege at the Senator Bala Ibn Na’Allah led Ad- Hoc committee set up to investigate the matter said he was already in court over his invitation, the Inspector General of Police ( IGP) Ibrahim Idris , represented by a Police Commissioner told the committee that investigation on the ugly incident could take the Police 10 years to conclude which technically rendered the committee impotent.
From mace theft saga , the already divided Senate in June , entered into another polarised season in June and July this year characterised by gale of defections from one political parry to the other.


Then come mass defection
First to start the defection was Senator Dino Melaye, who after the ordeal he had with the Police between April and May and even still having it now,  requested on the floor of the Senate to move to the side meant for the PDP senators on alleged grounds that the APC-led government at both the centre and Kogi state level have been using the Police to unjustifiably persecute him.
Following Melaye a month after, were 13 other Senators like Isa Misau ( Bauchi Central), Suleiman Nazif ( Bauchi North), Ubali Shittu ( Jigawa South ), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso ( Kano Central), Abdullahi Danbaba ( Sokoto North), Rafiu Ibrahim ( Kwara South), Shaaba Lafiagi ( Kwara North ) , Suleiman Hunkuyi (Kaduna North) and Usman Bayero Nafada ( Gombe North) on the 24th of July , 2018 on account of Police being used against the leadership of the Senate and alleged absymal performance of Buhari led federal government.


Big fish Bukola in defection train
The defection saga reached its climax on the 31st of July when the Senate President , Bukola Saraki dumped the party on alleged frustration being meted out to him by some fifth columnists within the party  with attendant strident opposition against his remaining in office as Senate President.
The move against Saraki as Senate President with PDP membership got intensified in August with the defection of Godswill Akpabio from PDP to APC, the height of which led to the invasion of the National Assembly by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) which led to federal legislators at both chambers on the platform of PDP to keep vigil at the entrances of both hallowed chamber for a week to prevent APC lawmakers from taking them by surprise in anyway.


Buhari heckled
From the stage of cat and mouse game between the PDP federal lawmakers and their counterparts in APC over leadership, enters the stage of open partisanship on the 19th of this month during President Muhammadu Buhari ‘s 2019 budget presentation to the joint session of the National Assembly which was characterized by cheers and jeers from the lawmakers along party lines.
Little wonder that President Buhari, while making presentation of the N8.83trillion 2019 budget estimates at a point, had to caution the lawmakers over legislative fireworks being displayed by them by saying “Hon Members, may I appeal to you that the World is watching us, we need to be above this “, which however in anyway did not stop the lawmakers from the cheering and jeering of the President in the bid of proving which of the parties controls majority in the federal parliament now.
Even comments made by different lawmakers on the budget proposals across party lines since the presentation, have been of divisions between PDP and APC members.
While the Senate President, Bukola Saraki described the budget estimates as hollow and deficient in delivery of democracy dividends to Nigerians, the Senate Leader , 


Ahmed Lawan ( APC Yobe North) described it as a fantastic proposal geared towards genuine development of the country .
Obviously going by the foregoing, 2018 , has been year of divisions in the Senate and by extension, the National Assembly on account of the coming general elections in 2019, the outcome of which will determine whether the divisions will linger to the end of the 8th National Assembly in  June 2019 or not.
Bye, Bye to 2018, the year of division and partisanship loaded legislative theatrics in the Senate in particular and to some extent, in the House of Representatives.


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