When he spoke on Television last weekend, the President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo alleged that the Vice President, Atiku Abubakar was the first to introduce bribery to the National Assembly when he gave USD 5,000 to the members of the Senate to remove his choice President of the Chamber from office, Evans Enwerem. The Vice President denies ever giving bribes to the National Assembly. Rather, it is the President who used bribes to scuttle his party’s choice of the first Senate President and, destroying in the process, the unity, solidarity and the rank-and-file discipline among the PDP membership in the National Assembly.

This is how it all began:

On May 29 th, 1999, the day the new civilian administration was sworn-in, the PDP called a meeting of its Senators-elect at Agura Hotel in Abuja. At the meeting, which minutes were taken, the party said that it wanted to involve the Senators in the choice of their presiding officer and other principal officers. When the choice of the Senate President was put to vote, the overwhelming majority cast their votes for Dr Chuba Okadigbo. In fact, only four Senators declined to support Okadigbo, namely: Nwobodo who wanted to be Senate President and therefore, voted for himself; as well as Nzeribe and Enwerem who also harboured a similar aspiration. Chief Joseph Waku, the fourth of the dissenters voted for Nwobodo.

When the President got the result of the votes, he said “no,” he was not going to have Okadigbo as the President of the Senate. He then invited the Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and Gen. T.Y. Danjuma to join him for breakfast the following morning. The President told the two that Okadigbo smoked Marijuana and was a womanizer for which reasons he was not going to have him as the President of the Senate. He therefore asked the Vice President to tell Okadigbo to step down from the race, and in his place, he said, he wanted Evans Enwerem. The Vice President advised that apart from the fact that Enwerem was not known to him, this man that the President wanted had just joined the PDP from the All Peoples Party (APP) and needed time to acclimatize. The Local Government Elections in Imo State returned the PDP with a big margin. This overwhelming victory necessitated the key political figures in that state, who had hitherto positioned themselves in APP rethinking their positions. Chief Ifeanyi Araraume as APP chairman, along with Chiefs Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, Arthur Nzeribe and Enwerem moved over to the PDP three weeks to the elections. Enwerem had a Senate Seat concessioned to him. The Vice President argued that while he knew Okadigbo as a cigarette smoker, the Senator did not smoke marijuana. Atiku jokingly told the President he, (the President) was a worst offender when it comes to womanizing. The President stormed out in anger. General Danjuma found himself talking to the Vice President, asking such questions whether “this is the way you civilians treat the commander-in-chief.” In the presence of a former National Security Adviser, General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, Danjuma explained that in the military, whenever the Commander-in-Chief took a position, everyone queued behind him. The Vice President responded by saying that this was not a military government and that if this is the way the President wanted to run the country, the VP was ready to leave the government, or at best, go to his office and sit down to read newspapers. It was clear that the government was already in crisis, twenty-four hours after coming into office.

That evening, May 30 th, the party Chairman, Chief Solomon Lar called a meeting of Stakeholders including Alhaji Lawal Kaita, Dr Alex Ekwueme, and leading founding members of the party at the Villa. He announced that “tomorrow this government will start and we cannot begin like this”.

The President charged at Ekwueme, asking him “is this how you worked with Shagari?” going on to state that this government will have only one C-in-C.

Ekwueme replied by saying that before any decision is made by their government, he was invited to a discussion by the President and that his views were taken. Whenever a decision is reached thereby, everyone stood by the decision taken.

As a solution to the deadlock, the meeting resolved that the Principal actors, the President and the Vice President give up their respective choices of Enwerem and Okadigbo, for a neutral candidate to emerge. At this stage, the South-East caucus led by Dr Ekwueme, Dr Sylvester Ugoh and the former National Treasurer retired to Ekwueme’s Suite at the Hilton to produce a new consensus candidate. They arrived at an early decision in the person of Senator Adolphus Wabara and the former Vice President was mandated to deliver the name to the President at the Villa. Coming out of the meeting, the delegates were shocked to see businessman Chief Arthur Eze, Alhaji Lawal Batagarawa and a now estranged friend of President Obasanjo from the South-West ferrying “Ghana-must-go” of both Naira and Dollar sums to the Senators in their rooms. Not one to be prevailed upon to give up on a given course of action, the President, unknown to them, had bought over Alliance for Democracy, AD, and the All Nigerian People’s Party, APP, (both defunct ) Senators in addition to about 40 percent of the PDP membership to overturn the decision of his own party (PDP).

Enwerem won the Senate Presidency. With that, emerged what came to be known as “PDP 1” (made up of AD, APP and a few PDP Senators) and “PDP 2” who were in talking terms with their party. From this point, there was no party loyalty anymore. From that day, party discipline died a natural death. As Chairman Board of Trustees, Vice President Ekwueme did everything to reconcile the President with the Senate dominated by their party but alas, this was to no avail.

This was the beginning of Obasanjo’s meddlesomeness in the affairs of the National Assembly. The consequences of course were instability in the National Assembly and a rapid turnover in its leadership. The President had been misadvised, obviously to have his own man at the helm of affairs at the National Assembly instead of allowing PDM Stalwarts as Deputy and President of the Senate. Obasanjo took the advice because it suited his own instinct to control and dominate all institutions of government. In furtherance of this desire, he was willing to use everything - including money to get his way.