the mode of electing presiding officers of the 9th National Assembly.
Some stakeholders canvass adoption of the secret ballot system while
some others favour open ballot. Both have given reasons for their
respective stance.
Secret ballot advocates want confidentiality so that members can freely
cast their votes without fear of victimization by the superintending
machinery of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC). Those
pushing for open ballot want a restraining process that could be used to
rein in members of the governing party to vote for its endorsed
candidates.
Open ballot puts members-elect under intense pressure. It can influence
the election in favour of the governing party’s preferred choices,
excepting where members or some members decide to dare the party and
damn the consequences. Conversely, secret ballot gives members the
leeway to engage in real ‘monkey business’.
For the APC, the fear of ‘monkey business,’ now, is the beginning of
wisdom. Having been once beaten in the 2015 National Assembly leadership
election when Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara upstaged its anointed
candidates – Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila – for the positions of
Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives
respectively, circumspection becomes imperative.
Interestingly, the APC’s anointed candidates that were defeated in
2015 are the same candidates being promoted by the party to lead the
National Assembly in 2019. The question is: what has changed between
then and now to avert a repeat of the 2015 debacle? It is possible that
a whole lot has changed. But the attitude of the party leadership
suggests otherwise. The party leadership and the anointed candidates do
not appear surefooted; otherwise, the mode of election should not have
mattered, especially where the standing orders of the Federal
Legislature are unambiguous on the voting mode.
The method of clothing leaderships at all levels of government with
authority or legitimacy should not have been problematic had the quest
for power been motivated by altruism. Selflessness is not an exemplar in
the government and governance architecture of our nation. Institutions
and processes are always circumvented to satisfy predetermined narrow
ends.
The agitation for the circumvention of the extant standing orders of the
National Assembly, which provides secret ballot as the mode of electing
presiding officers, speaks to the much fundamental malaise afflicting
our body-politic: the proclivity to violating rules and regulations and
the impunity of scoffing the ramifications of the breach.
The system is sadly subordinated to individuals’ whims or caprices.
Pretenders to leadership positions egregiously operate the system in
service of their selfish agenda. Otherwise, I ask once more: why,
indeed, would some individuals advocate the adoption of open ballot when
the standing orders of both the Senate and the House of Representatives
clearly provide for secret ballot?
The fault is in political elite’s mind-set of deliberately placing
personal interest over collective, national interest. Political
leadership and power elite have always manipulated the system in
desperate and selfish bids to appropriate authority and commonwealth in
furtherance of personal gains. This is not solely APC’s problem.
Regardless, it is buckling under the weighty pressure of its avowed
determination to deliver the individuals to whom it had micro-zoned the
leadership of the 9th National Assembly, perhaps preparatory to 2023
presidential politics.
For a party that controls the majority in the Federal Legislature,
APC’s gravitas and magisterial élan are on the line. Ordinarily, it
should have its way. But the acts of politicians and their desperate
quest for power and positions are somewhat shrouded in political
statements that are, at best, apocryphal. I believe stakeholders should
not resort to circumvention of the rules in a bid to push through
interests and endorsements.
Instead of circumventing the rules, steps should be taken by the
National Assembly to amend the rules in accordance with popular
aspirations. Usually, every session of the National Assembly has the
liberty to do that. That was the reason the 7th Session of the Senate
purportedly amended the standing orders that the former Clerk to the
National Assembly (CNA), Salisu Maikasuwa, used to inaugurate the 8th
Session.
The document, tagged: Senate Standing Orders 2015 as amended, comprises
the extant rules regulating the workings of the Senate. It provides for
secret ballot and it has yet to be amended. And as long as it has not
been amended, it remains the document that will guide the incumbent CNA,
Mohammed Ataba Sani-Omolori, in the inauguration of the 9th National
Assembly.
The crux of the procedures is that nomination of senators-elect for
election as presiding officers shall be addressed to the CNA.
Significantly, the rule mandates the CNA to take charge and,
specifically, in Order 3(3)(9e) to proceed in this direction, to wit:
“when two or more senators-elect are nominated and seconded as Senate
President, the election shall be conducted as follows: (i) by electronic
voting; or (ii) voting by secret ballot which shall be conducted by the
Clerks-at-the Table using the list of the Senators-elect of the Senate,
who shall each be given a ballot paper to cast his vote, with the
proposers and seconder as Teller.” The same mode applies in the House
of Representatives.
Ostensibly, the APC leadership, acting in concert with the presidency,
is ill-at-ease with the secret ballot mode. It would have loved to see
members-elect of the party that will dare to vote against its positions
on the floors of the two chambers. But for a member of the 7th National
Assembly, Senator Yisa Braimoh, who represented Edo North on the
platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), open ballot should be
adopted.
That was the mode that was adopted on June 5, 2007 in the election that
pitted David Mark and George Akume against each other. That was the
first and only time open ballot would be adopted in the Fourth Republic
Senate leadership election. Both Mark and Akume belonged to the ruling
PDP. The standing rule was not specific on the election mode. The party,
under Ahmadu Ali, had informed members-elect that Mark was its candidate
for senate president and Mulikat Adeola was its candidate for Speaker.
Although Mark won in the Senate and Adeola lost to Aminu Tambuwwal who
dared to challenge the party’s decision, Mark’s victory did not go
without a strong challenge on the Senate floor.
Incidentally, Braimoh was one of the senators who voted for Akume in the
open ballot that was adopted, a move that indicated their
independent-mindedness and courage to differ with the party. He and
other senators who voted for Akume, however, received raw deals from the
Mark leadership in appointments into standing and ad-hoc committees. In
retrospect, Braimoh believes he took the right decision. He believes
open ballot will help to strengthen democracy and independence of the
three arms of government.
According to him, “that is why I remain of the firm belief that the
open ballot system, if adopted, now or permanently, will guarantee the
genuine wish of Senators-elects (and members-elect) for the emergence of
the senate leadership. Secret ballot safeguards hypocrisy, disloyalty
and pretence.” As appealing as his position maybe, the fact remains
that the standing orders of both chambers have yet to be amended and the
CNA, who is a lawyer, will be guided by the rules of both chambers on
the mode of election contained therein: secret ballot. Until the rules
are amended, the agitation for open ballot remains futile.
· OJEIFO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF THE CONGRESSWATCH MAGAZINE,
CONTRIBUTED THIS PIECE VIAOJWONDERNGR@YAHOO.COM
Sufuyan Ojeifo
Editor- in- Chief
The Congresswatch Magazine
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