The Tambuwal affair PDP’s dance on the ceiling

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP so commonly referred to by its aficionados  as Africa’s largest political party easily became the continent’s biggest clown last Monday.
Fresh from a better than expected performance during the recent nationwide elections and seeking to reinvent itself in a democracy mold forced on itself a long needed diet of humble pie.
Against the conviction of the majority of the members-elect of the House of Representatives, the party had sought to foist a leadership on the House. It was indeed not an inadvertent mistake for a party that had since the inception of democratic rule in 1999 not deciphered the partitions between the three arms of government.
The party’s choice was Mrs. Mulikat Akande-Adeola who beat the initial momentum earlier garnered by Murina Ajibola, the only other “qualified” candidate from the Southwest, the zone to which the party had controversially zoned the office of Speaker.
Despite stiff opposition from a large section of the polity mostly the Southeast, the party stuck to its position. The desperation of the party to enforce the zoning policy was itself bewildering.
Though Ajibola was the initial choice of the Southwest PDP caucus, other interests, notably feminine interests within the presidency, reportedly weighed in and Akande-Adeola became a favourite for the party.
Her articulation and credentials nonetheless, members-elect as they were at that time, were particularly peeved by what some considered as the primordial interests that were championing the zoning of the office of Speaker to the Southwest.
The indices for a rebellion were obvious but the PDP perhaps carried away with its imaginary powers sought to suppress the rebellion.
As ever, it deployed its enforcers led by Chief Tony Anenih, the erstwhile chairman of the party’s board of trustees, the national chairman Dr. Mohammed Bello, newly appointed Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and selected Governors to break the will of the members.
While the PDP clambered about for a pivot to turn the screws against the rebellion, the opposition Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN and the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC in a demonstration of real politicks sought identified with the rebellion now led by Aminu Tambuwal, the party’s deputy whip. It was an irony. The party’s whip with the designated role of enforcing discipline was at the head of the rebellion against the party.
The two leading minority parties it was learnt, instructed their members to vote for Tambuwal. The decision was decisive given that all the minority parties hold 153 of the 360 seats, while the PDP controls 202 of the seats. Five seats are yet to be declared.
The judgment of the PDP leadership was also remarkably awkward given that a majority of the Northwest members where Tambuwal comes from were in support of him.
While the PDP could easily have emptied the rebellion by rezoning the Speakership to the Southeast or Northeast or reaching a common ground with the mutineers, the party rather chose the stick than the platform of reasoning.
The party’s determination to reward the Southwest zone with the office of Speaker was a gift to what was obviously Tambuwal’s latent ambition for the speakership. Many members-elect simply could not contemplate how a zone with only five PDP members could be rewarded with the position of Speaker where there were many other zones with far higher numbers. No other zone perhaps had less than 40 PDP House members.
The party’s obstinacy on sustaining the Speakership in the Southwest was what turned Tambuwal’s embryonic vision into what many House members have called the House Project.
“Tambuwal is just the face of the project, it is a House Project,” one member-elect told Vanguard days before the election.
But at the end of the day as the votes were collated last Monday, eyes did not see when Chief Anenih slipped away. Ear did not hear the hoof and grump of Anyim’s feet. The party elders simply disappeared in the midst of the slapping rebuke to obstinacy from a party that is yet to reshape itself in democratic nuances.
At the end of the collation watched on national television, with members returning 252 votes for Tambuwal and 90 votes for the favoured party candidate, Mrs. Akande-Adeola.
A day after, that is on Tuesday, the party’s apparatchik were even finding it difficult to swallow the humble pie that had been forced down their throat at the National Assembly the day before.
A day after Tambuwal was returned as Speaker despite the opposition of the presidency and the PDP hierarchy, the party was finding it difficult to swallow the humble pie that was stuck in it’s throat.
“It is important to reiterate that the principle of zoning is still an integral part of the PDP Constitution,” the party said in a statement issued by its national secretary, Alhaji Kawu Baraje.
”The National Working Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) notes with great concern the unfolding developments in the House of Representatives especially the outcome of the election of principal officers on Monday, 6th June 2011.
‘’While the Party believes in, and indeed encourages the exercise of freedom of choice for all Nigerians including members of the National Assembly, it is important to reiterate that the principle of zoning is still an integral part of the PDP Constitution.
‘’The idea of zoning is a well thought-out philosophy for National stability and integration. It is the only guarantee that every segment of Nigeria enjoys a sense of belonging by being represented in all the decision making organs of the government of Nigeria.
The party was to make a U-turn the following day, Wednesday when it received an “apologetic” delegation of the House leadership led by Speaker Tambuwal. The national chairman, Bello after receiving the apology from Tambuwal was to ask for collaboration with the House leadership in the selection of other House officials. That indeed should have been the initial response from the PDP, not the belly-aching that marked its initial outburst.