A Crack Within The National Assembly: Is Bukola Saraki A Traitor?

Editor’s note: Once again, the Naij.com columnist Bayo Olupohunda weighs in on the looming crisis within the National Assembly, with Bukola Saraki as the main character and potential trigger to many scenarios.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Naij.com.

Story highlights:

— “The word out there by Bukola Saraki’s detractors is that the new Senate president is a traitor who plotted a betrayal with the ‘enemy’ to achieve his selfish ambition”

— “This unexpected turn of events has thrown up a struggle for power that has the capacity to tear the APC apart”

— “More conspiracy theories have since emerged”

The debate has been gaining ascendancy in recent times on social media, on the streets, and everywhere two or more Nigerians gather to discuss the drama of the absurd playing out in the National Assembly. The word out there by Bukola Saraki’s detractors is that the new Senate president is a traitor who plotted a betrayal with the ‘enemy’ to achieve his selfish ambition.

Saraki’s loyalty to his party, the ruling APC, is being questioned by elements in his party and Nigerians. Bukola Saraki’s character and personality are under intense scrutiny. Since his emergence as Senate president following the controversial inauguration of the National Assembly, the Kwara-born politician has been in the eye of the storm. The National Assembly has also not known peace since Saraki was sworn in as its president.

What is the root of the present rage? Saraki had led a group of like-minded senators to defy his party’s instruction to emerge as president of the Senate, ahead of Ahmad Lawan who was the party’s choice. To complicate the matter even the more, another senator from the rival PDP, Senator Ike Ekweremandu, emerged from the ruins of his party’s defeat to become the deputy Senate president.

The APC are riled that a party they defeated at the 2015 elections could surreptitiously find its way to the top echelon of the Senate leadership through the connivance of their man. Not only that, the party’s choice at the House of Representatives had also been ‘subverted’ in the same manner. Femi Gbaja-Biamila, the party’s choice as Speaker of the House of Representatives, also lost out. This left the party with no significant representation in the legislature in its own government.

For the APC, this sudden reversal of fortune after the euphoria of May 29 is a nightmarish dream they wish they would wake up from to forget. The chaos playing out at the Assembly has thus become an unsavory ‘morning after’ since the presidential election victory and the inauguration of Buhari.

The Senate has not known any peace since the inauguration. It recently erupted into chaos. Members engaged in a free-for-all. Nigerians were shocked that a newly-inaugurated Senate in an era of ‘change’ soon descended into their old ways.  As the battle to share the ‘spoil’ intensifies, some so-called like-minded senators had again defied their party to nominated Ali Ndume as Senate Majority leader. With the choice of Ndume, a man with the charge of sponsoring Boko Haram still hanging on his neck, it seems the APC rout is complete.

In fact, as things stand, it will take some deus ex machina to save the party from implosion in the coming years. The APC is unraveling very fast. Events are unfolding in a dizzying manner, and even party members will be surprised at the results. The imbroglio at the National Assembly has revealed the deep divisions within the ‘rainbow coalition’. Even those who thought the party would work out their differences will be shocked at how situation within the party has degenerated. It is clear that the party still has a lot of internal re-engineering to do before it becomes a party with a common purpose and not an agglomeration of factions fighting over national cake. As the APC swims in troubled waters, many in the party who consider themselves as purists, or core members from the old Action Congress of Nigeria, consider Saraki as ‘the enemy within’. Saraki is now seen as the ‘mole’ in the party. He is also being accused of betrayal and disloyalty. They say he did not mind selling his party for a pot of porridge to achieve his own ambition against the overall wish of the party. How true?

Indeed, at the inception of the crisis the senator from Kwara state left no one in doubt that he was prepared to dare anybody who stands in his path to becoming the president of the Senate. Not even the APC internal election, where Senator Lawan and Femi Gbaja-Biamila emerged as party’s favourites, could stop him. He was a man with a mission. He never took his eyes off the ball. He revealed in a recent interview that on the day of the inauguration he went to the Assembly as early as 6am and sat in a ‘small’ car to wait for the proceedings to begin. He shunned the meeting alleged to have been called by the president at another venue. He showed that he is a cunning political strategist when he connived with other senators largely dominated by his former PDP colleagues.

Now, this unexpected turn of events has thrown up a struggle for power that has the capacity to tear the APC apart. Also the debate whether Saraki is a traitor will continue to dominate public discourse as long as he remains the Senate president. Indeed, his presidency of the Senate has activated the once-latent factions within the party. While one faction is loyal to him and has sympathizers from the former vice president Atiku Abubakar’s faction, the other, loyal to the national leader Ahmed Bola Tinubu, is seething with rage.

And they are waiting for the most auspicious moment to take their “pound of flesh”. The Saraki faction knows that it has just stepped on the tiger’s tail, as Tinubu, the “master political strategist” and “the Lion of Bourdillon,” never lets an injustice to his ego pass. Those who accuse Saraki of betrayal say he undermined his party in the manner he connived and compromised with the PDP. Now the die cast. While many political analysts and observers did not expect that the APC will fall into crisis so soon, Nigerians now find themselves dealing with a divided ruling party and chaotic National Assembly.

More conspiracy theories have since emerged. Saraki is said to be nursing a presidential ambition. The grapevine says he is scheming to position himself as Buhari’s successor in 2019, or sometime in the future. Others who oppose him also point to a man whose political career they consider tainted by corruption. Their grouse is that he is not suitable for the position of Nigeria’s ‘number three’ citizen in a government headed by a president whose aversion to corruption is not in doubt. For now, it seems the deed has been done and Saraki remains the Senate President and continues to consolidate his powers. One thing is sure though: in politics, especially in our clime, nothing is certain and only the fittest survive. Saraki may hold the aces today. But four years is a long time in politics. For now, he has to constantly watch his back.

Bayo Olupohunda, a renowned Nigerian educator and columnist

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