Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State stoked controversy again when he indirectly claimed credit for the victory of Hon Yakubu Dogara in the June 9 leadership election of the House of Representatives. The governor made the claim when he received visiting Sayawa leaders from the Speaker’s constituency of Bogoro/Tafawa Balewa in Bauchi State. His main reason for backing Hon Dogara, he disclosed, was the Speaker’s competence. There is little in his summation of the June 9 election that showed Mallam Tambuwal was completely honest, nor that even if he could be so regarded, that he spoke wisely, minded his logic, or paid heed to the wider import of his choices. Hon Dogara’s Sayawa leaders were clear who they thought championed the cause of their son, and they travelled to Sokoto to let the world know, and to pay homage.
Hear Mallam Tambuwal: “Eight out of ten members of the Body of Principal Officers in the 7th Assembly supported Dogara’s aspiration. Only Hon Femi (Gbajabiamila) and Hon Datti Ahmad supported Femi. I have strong affinity with Hon Femi. He was closer to me than Dogara. But when talking about leadership and collective decisions, sentiments have to be put aside. I’m not here to tell you that my support made Dogara the Speaker, no. Two things made Dogara to become the Speaker, one is God and two, Dogara’s competence. The acknowledgement of Dogara’s competence did not start with me. It started from the time of Hon Patricia Etteh and Hon Dimeji Bankole when they entrusted him with a sensitive position of the Chairman of House Services Committee.”
The governor continues: “The committee is one of the most sensitive in the legislature. Apart from taking care of the welfare of members, the committee oversees all procurement processes. As the Speaker, I only did what my predecessors did by giving Dogara this sensitive position. No person, as far as I know, has ever served as chairman of the House Services committee in two dispensations. Dogara broke that jinx. All through my tenure, I brought Dogara close to me because I found in him a person who is competent, accommodating, and with capacity to lead. Anyone doubting Dogara’s ability to lead, should ask members of the 7th Assembly how he handled their matter. So we supported Dogara not for any reason but because he was competent to deliver on any task given to him.”
Mallam Tambuwal spoke engagingly to the Sayawa leaders; but he spoke fulsomely like someone whose conscience was troubled, partly indicating that he seemed oblivious of the wider ramifications of his statement. He must be a politician of enormous courage and indifference to anchor his backing for Dogara purely on competence. For a man with presidential ambition, and one who admitted he was closer to Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, it is still mystifying why he discountenanced that closeness and the support the Surulere, Lagos Rep gave him during his leadership of the lower chamber to back a different horse. In his address to the Sayawa leaders, Mallam Tambuwal was in effect saying that Hon Dogara was more competent than Hon Gbajabiamila, a fact he believed was reinforced by the support given the new Speaker by eight out of 10 principal leaders of the 7th House of Representatives.
Stung to the quick, and probably miffed by the suggestion that Hon Dogara was more competent than he, Hon Gbajabiamila retorted that the God factor in his opponent’s victory was a more rational explanation for the outcome of the election. Just as it is not known what other motives really propelled Mallam Tambuwal to back Hon Dogara, it is also not quite certain that Hon Gbajabiamila told the whole truth on the value of Tambuwal’s influence on the election. Two facts are, however, obvious from the Dogara victory. The competence argument advanced by Mallam Tambuwal appears far-fetched. Given the margin of the Dogara victory (182 to 174) — or just eight votes — the vaunted influence of the eight out of 10 principal officers of the 7th Rep celebrated by Mallam Tambuwal may be a red herring. Second, the closeness of the Rep leadership election, though it ended in defeat for Hon Gbajabiamila, testified to his popularity and strength. Had Senator Bukola Saraki not become Senate President, thereby distorting the zoning arrangement in the National Assembly, Hon Gbajabiamila would probably have won, especially given his strong showing on June 9.
There were insinuations that Mallam Tambuwal backed Hon Dogara probably because he was unhappy with the party’s preference for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, now president. Some staunch Southwest APC members had bought a nomination form for Mallam Tambuwal, and for a moment, it appeared the party’s leadership was poised to back him all the way. He was, however, unceremoniously dumped after a lot of political calculations and jostling. Mallam Tambuwal is thought to be still smarting from the incident. In addition, the Sokoto governor is also thought to be anxious to join others in curbing the influence of the national leader of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who seemed to loom rather large over the party’s structure and ambitions. Mallam Tambuwal has declined absolutely to address these suppositions. Instead, he merely focused on what he described as Hon Dogara’s competence. Few politicians believe him.
The implications of the National Assembly leadership elections will doubtless manifest in the coming months and years. Reacting to Mallam Tambuwal’s explanation on the outcome of the Reps leadership election, Hon Gbajabiamila said he wished the Sokoto governor well in his future endeavours. Many take this as a veiled indication that should Mallam Tambuwal need the support of Hon Gbajabiamila and possibly the Southwest sometime in the future, he would find it tough going. It is however too soon to draw such inferences and conclusions. Instead, the question to ask is whether in the political circumstances surrounding the Reps leadership election of June 9 Mallam Tambuwal acted with enough discretion and foresight to keep his presidential ambition alive for approximately the next four years. No conclusions can be drawn with any certainty.
What is, however, clear is that Mallam Tambuwal may not have acted with substantial wisdom in retaining his friends and courting those outside his close circle of friends. Even if he was right to conclude that Hon Dogara was more competent than Hon Gbajabiamila, as an ambitious politician, he should have asked himself whether the call he was about to make was politically expedient for both his present and future needs. Given the closeness of the June 9 vote, it does appear there is no settling the precedence between Hon Dogara and Hon Gbajabiamila in terms of competence. Worrisomely too, Mallam Tambuwal’s choices may signify a hitherto hidden part of his person and psychological make-up. Was it possible that when they backed him for the Reps leadership election in 2011, the progressives in the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) didn’t know him as much as they thought? Just as the drawn-out conflict between the pro-June 12 activists and the Gen Sani Abacha military government in the 90s exposed the inner but appalling character of many otherwise respected Nigerian politicians, especially from the Southwest, the June 9 Reps leadership election may have exposed the true character, ideology and preferences of many supposedly principled and brilliant politicians.
It also took the election of the Christian and South-South Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 and his reelection campaign in 2015 to expose the true nature, prejudices and poor judgement of many southern and especially Southwest politicians. After Dr Jonathan, Nigerian politics, not to say Southwest politics, is unlikely to be the same again. After the June 9 National Assembly leadership elections , especially Mallam Tambuwal’s controversial ratiocination, Nigerian politics and power relations in the legislature and elsewhere at the national level are certain to be affected or even altered in ways many politicians cannot begin to imagine.
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