First and foremost I wish to congratulate the 324 elected members of the 10th House of Representatives who received their certificates of return from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) last week. I extend the same wishes to the current speaker of the House, cerebral Hon Femi Gbajabiamila who is yet to explain to his constituents and Nigerians why he refused to show up to collect the certificate.
The collection of certificates is the first assignment of elected political office holders after the election, and it signals readiness to carry on with the mandate of the electorates. Over and beyond that, individual members who are interested in leading the 10th Assembly either as president of the Senate or speaker of the House explored the opportunity to get into the heart of first-term lawmakers to curry their support for their ambition.
From the activities of last Wednesday when the certificates were presented, one could deduce that influential lawmaker from Borno State, Hon Muktar Betara Aliyu has made up his mind on the contest. Without prejudice to other ambitious lawmakers, the silent but very powerful lawmaker has hit the ground running and may not bow to any pressure to drop his ambition this time.
Although I am in no position to divulge the strategies already noticed from his camp, his welcome packages to the lawmakers are suggestive enough to conclude that Betara meant business. I have sampled opinions across political party divides and my responses so far indicate that zoning the position out of azz Betara’s North East geopolitical zone may not defeat him in the contest. I stop here to resist the temptation of partly doing the work of Betara’s handlers, but let me also note that his first strategy, as noticed during last Wednesday’s ceremony was very impressive and it will surely take a lot of effort for other contestants to catch up with the grounds already covered by him.
This, however, does not suggest that other contestants are weak in strategy, rather, I feel those who have been mobilising support behind the scene for the contest are hanging on for the APC to release its zoning formula for various positions in the 10th Assembly before revealing their cards.
The current deputy speaker, Idris Wase has been silent, perhaps, waiting for the party to zone the position of the speaker to his North-central geopolitical zone. This may not be illogical, Wase’s supporters have argued that he is strategically positioned to take over from Gbajabiamila, more so that the North Central zone is yet to clinch a position in the incoming government, unlike the South West and the North East, where Berata comes from. Also, Interested members from North West, South East and South-south are advancing the same argument, thereby, leaving the party to perform magic in their favour.
There is another grand plan by the power brokers in the Senate to negotiate the party’s support for the speaker or deputy speaker when their zone fails to get the president of the Senate or the deputy. For instance, should the party North West or South East by the party’s arrangement fail to get either of the two positions, interested political bigwigs who are close to the decision-makers in the party have positioned protégés in the House to whom he may negotiate the speaker or deputy. While I am not at liberty to divulge details of this grand plan since every piece of information remains within the realm of speculation, certain political movements interpret these speculations and there is no smoke without fire.
The inauguration of the 10th National Assembly will take place in June, which is about 3 months from now. Other factors will still come to play and it may be too early to suggest how the pendulum will swing, 24 hours they say is a very long time in politics.
However, it is crystal clear that if the situation is not properly managed, the party just like what happened in 2015, will learn another hard way. From the elections so far concluded by INEC APC has 162 seats; PDP has 102; Labour Party has 34; NNPP has 18; APGA 4; ADC 2; SDP has 2 and YPP has only one seat. This is a very easy equation to solve and this explains why a serious contender is not banking on support from only one political party.
