2013: A year shaped by political upheavals

The year 2013 was shaped by several political developments, some of which have continued to heat up the polity ahead of the 2015 general elections, writes JOHN ALECHENU.
 

In the beginning

When the National Assembly passed

a budget totaling N4.987trn for expenditure in 2013, as early as December 20, 2012, many Nigerians heaved a sigh of relief.

This was predicated on what turned out to be an erroneous belief that the legislature and the executive arms of government have, in the interest of the ordinary Nigerians, decided to bury their persistent political differences.

Thus, 2013 arguably began on a sour note; as both arms of government squabbled over the figures contained in the document.

This led to a decision by the President Goodluck Jonathan-led administration, to return the document to the National Assembly in the form of an amendment bill.

It took six months for the dispute to be resolved. The 2013 budget amendment bill was eventually passed on July 25, 2013. Sadly, while the budget row was simmering, internal rumblings within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party was gathering steam.

The struggle for the control of the party machinery between the President and the governors elected on its platform spilled into the Nigerian Governors Forum. Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, as the NGF chairman, had the daunting task of leading his colleagues in the pursuit of the forum’s economic interests, regardless of the fact that he belongs to the same political party with the President.

However, his style of administration pitted him against the Presidency and the PDP’s hierarchy.

A case in point was his presentation of the NGF’s communiqué of January 28, 2013.

After rejecting further adjournments in a suit challenging deductions from state allocations from the Federation Account, the NGF decided to take its fate in its hands.

While presenting the NGF communiqué after the year’s inaugural meeting, Amaechi said, “We, the governors of the 36 states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at our first meeting of the year held today, Monday, January 28, 2013, at the Rivers State Governor’s Lodge, Abuja, deliberated over a number of issues and resolved as follows:

“Forum decries the present attitude of the Federal Government on the Excess Crude Account and resolved to take no further adjournments in the subsisting case in court but seek a final resolution of the matter from the Supreme Court.”

 Formation of the PDPGF 

Jolted by the “militant” tone of the communiqué and the suspicion that Amaechi, a PDP governor, was not willing to do the party’s bidding, the President’s handlers decided it was time to tame him, and by extension, recalcitrant PDP governors.

This, among other things, led to the formation of the Goodswill Akpabio-led PDP governors’ Forum. The decision to do this was taken after a hastily convened meeting within the confines of the Presidential Villa.

According to Akpabio, Akwa Ibom State governor, the PDPGF was formed to stop the NGF from being turned into a trade union.

He said, “We will not allow minorities to impose their ideas on us the majority. We will not allow NGF to be seen as a trade union to fight government.

“We cannot be fighting the Federal Government. We are part of the Federal Government. Our job is to work with the Federal Government to initiate best policies for the interest of Nigerians.”

This set the stage for other events to follow. A scheduled election of the NGF was postponed as a result of the insistence of some of the President’s handlers that Amaechi drop his bid to seek another term as chairman.

 2015 and the single term controversy

An interview granted by the Chairman, Northern Governors Forum, Babangida Aliyu, to a Kaduna-based radio station, gave a face and a voice to innuendoes and the real reason for the bitter internal wrangling among leading figures in the PDP.

Aliyu had in the interview, declared that President Jonathan signed a single term pact with Northern governors.

He claimed that the President agreed to serve for a single term of four years. If such a pact exists and is honoured, it rules out President Jonathan from contesting the 2015 Presidential election.

Jonathan and his team have since denied the charge and have challenged anyone who has any documentary evidence to the contrary to make it public.

His Special Adviser on Political Matters, Alhaji Ahmed Gulak, and a former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark, have insisted that no one can deny President Jonathan his constitutionally guaranteed right to seek for a second term if he decides to do so.

 Opposition parties begin merger talks 

By late February up till early March, the much talked about merger of hitherto distinct opposition parties namely: the Action Congress of Nigeria, the All Nigeria Peoples Party and the Congress for Progressive Change and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, began to make headlines.

Leading opposition figures such as Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau and several others began to work out modalities to adopting a single identity to challenge the ruling PDP.

 Governors visit Borno State

Governors elected on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, paid a solidarity visit to their Borno State counterpart Ibrahim Shettima, who at the time was a member of the All Nigeria Peoples Party.

The visit, which earned the then leading opposition political party some political points, elicited a response from the Presidency as it accused the opposition of seeking to score cheap political points. This however spurred the President into paying his first official visit to the troubled state since the Boko Haram insurgency began.

 Jonathan sets up 26-member amnesty committee for Boko Haram

In response to calls from many quarters for a peaceful resolution of the Boko Haram insurgency, the President set up a 26-member committee headed by the Minister for Special Duties, Tanimu Turaki, on April 17, to initiate dialogue with members of the sect with  a view to working out modalities for granting the insurgents amnesty. The committee has since submitted its report, but little if  anything, has been heard about its work ever since.

 When 16 became more than 19 

In the midst of these claims and counter-claims, the NGF for the first time in its history, jettisoned the consensus arrangement used for selecting occupants of the position of chairman. It held an election in May.

Amaechi, who has had a running battle with President Jonathan, defied a party “directive” not to contest the NGF chairmanship. He contested for the post and beat the PDP preferred candidate, Jonah Jang, with 19 votes to 16.

Both men have since being laying claim to being duly elected. Two factions of the NGF now exist. A faction led by Plateau State governor, Jonah Jang enjoys the support of the Presidency and the ruling PDP, while the Amaechi-led faction enjoys the backing of aggrieved PDP governors and their colleagues in opposition political parties. Amaechi was suspended from the PDP for allegedly refusing to rescind a decision by the Rivers State House of Assembly, to suspend the Chairman and Council of Obi-Akpor Local Government Council.

 Declaration of a state of emergency in the North-East

Also in May, following reports of increased terrorist attacks by the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram, especially in states in the North- East, the President declared a state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa States. He announced that the action became necessary because the group’s activities have become a challenge to the sovereignty of the Nigerian state. Opposition political parties then led by the now defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, condemned the president’s action. They insisted on the continuation of dialogue as a way out of the insurgency.

 Political crisis in Rivers State

The political crisis in Rivers State which began with the suspension of the Obi-Akpor Local Government Council and the retaliatory sack of the Amaechi backed Godspower Ake-led Executive of the Rivers State Chapter of the PDP; the battle for the soul of the state took a turn for the worse on July 7th.

Members of the Rivers state House of Assembly resumed from a two month long forced vacation only to engage one another in a violent confrontation. Pro- Governor Rotimi Amaechi legislators battled five of their renegade colleagues said to be doing the bidding of the governor’s political opponents. The minority lawmakers moved to impeach the Speaker of the House, Otelemaba Amachree and other principal officers. In the fight that ensued, several lawmakers sustained various degrees of injuries.

However, the attack by the Majority Leader, Mr. Chidi Lloyd on another lawmaker using the mace vent viral on the internet. The crisis led to a takeover of the legislative functions of the House by the National Assembly. The federal lawmakers were still contemplating how to carry out this function, when a Federal High Court declared the take over as illegal.

 APC becomes a political party

Following the approval of an application for merger by three opposition political parties, the Independent National Electoral Commission granted their request and made it public on July 31, 2013. This brought to end speculations that the Commission was not favourably disposed to granting the request. There is however a pending litigation over the APC acronym. A political association which goes by the appellation African Peoples Congress is laying claim to the acronym.

 PDP special convention and matters arising

The ruling PDP held its Special Convention on August 31. However, the event which was meant to unite members of the party did the exact opposite.

A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and six of the party’s seven aggrieved governors namely: Murtala Nyako (Adamawa); Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano); Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara); and Babangida Aliyu (Niger). Others are: Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto) and Sule Lamido (Jigawa) walked out of Eagle Square, venue of the convention in protest. No sooner had they left than they converged on the Yar’Adua Centre, to announce the formation of the now defunct New PDP.

Several attempts by elders of the PDP to intervene in the crisis did not yield the desired results. Five of the seven governors went round the country visiting past Nigerian leaders to consult on the way forward.

 The November 16 Anambra elections

The Prof. Attahiru Jega-led electoral management body-INEC could not deliver on its promise to make the Anambra State governorship election a model for future elections. Age long challenges most of which INEC claimed it had overcome, became common place.

Some of these challenges include cases of eligible voters having voter cards but not being able to vote because their names were not on the register, the late arrival or non-arrival of electoral materials and in some cases, electoral officers.

Other identified challenges included INEC ad hoc staff going on strike over the non-payment of statutory allowances and voter apathy. A coalition of several election monitoring civil society groups under the aegis of the Nigeria Civil Society Election Situation Room, chided the election management body – INEC – for what it termed “shoddy logistics arrangements.”

The case of Idemili North Local Government Area was instructive. Elections did not hold in about 65 polling units across the area. In its final report on the election, the Election Situation Room said INEC had repeated too many common mistakes that the expectation of Anambra election serving as a litmus test for 2015 general election had not been fully realised.

It said, “It is our overall impression that the conduct of the elections leaves a lot to be desired and reflected the lack of competence on the part of INEC in the conduct of elections.”

The group also said, “The several failings of past elections identified in previous observer reports seem to have repeated themselves…”

The conduct of the supplementary elections did not assuage public anger- as most of the candidate boycotted the elections after INEC rejected calls by the opposition for outright cancellation.

 Defections, “body language” of corruption and a season of letters

The month of November introduced a new set of challenges to the ruling party. Five of its seven aggrieved governors formally announced their defection from the PDP into the opposition APC.

This was quickly followed by the defection of 37 members of the House of Representatives, thus compounding the party’s woes.

The month of December just like January, also began on a sad note for the ruling party. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, accused President Jonathan of encouraging and promoting corruption through several of his actions and inactions.

The nation’s number four citizen expressed frustration over the President’s refusal to act on recommendations made after the probe of several government agencies and officials who were accused of dizzying degrees of malfeasance.

He listed some of the cases to include the pension fund scandal, the Securities and Exchange Commission probe, and the bulletproof car purchase scandal among others.

Tambuwal also alleged that the President’s body language gave an impression that he was not bothered about the growing level of corruption within his administration especially as it affects his cabinet ministers.

Presidential Spokesperson, Dr. Rueben Abati, spoke out in defence of his principal by asking when the Speaker became clairvoyant to know the inner disposition of an individual.

The damage done by this allegation had yet to wane when a letter written by the Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido, to the President, was leaked. In the letter, Sanusi alleged that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation could not account for $49.8bn revenue from oil sales. Although he later reviewed the amount downwards, the damage done to the administration’s reputation remains incalculable.

Barely a week later, another letter surfaced. This time, it was one entitled “Before it is too late” written by former President Olusegun Obasanjo. It was an open letter addressed to President Jonathan. Obasanjo, in his letter, accused Jonathan, of among other things; incompetence, deceit, dishonesty and clannishness. The ex-President also alleged that 1,000 politicians have been put on a watch list while snipers were being trained perhaps, to take down the administration’s perceived enemies.

He also accused the President of attempting to renege on a single term agreement he entered into with the North. Obasanjo was not done; he further accused the President of undermining his party in pursuit of his personal interest citing the 2011 National Assembly elections as well as elections in Edo, Ekiti and Ondo states as examples.

Before President Jonathan could respond, Obasanjo’s eldest daughter- Iyabo, wrote a scathing letter to her father. In it, she accused the ex-President of having an insatiable thirst for power.

She also called him a selfish bully and liar, reminding him of the fact that he does not own Nigeria.

While Nigerians were still chewing on the contents of both letters, President Jonathan offered a public response to Obasanjo letter.

Jonathan, in his reply accused Obasanjo of falsehood. He challenged his predecessor to produce proof of all the allegations contained in his letter.

The President also said he was doing his best to curb corruption. He also reminded Obasanjo, that he did not fare any better in the war against corruption, even though he enjoyed the rare privilege of ruling the nation three times first as military ruler and twice as elected president.

He also accused his predecessor of instigating ethnic hatred as well as the PDP crisis all in a bid to install his anointed candidate as President in 2015.

 Impeachment calls 

Emboldened by all these happenings, the opposition All Progressives Congress, urged the National Assembly to impeach the President. The call shocked many Nigerians who felt the party was taking a political joke too far. Supporters of the call saw nothing wrong with it, while opponents said it was paving the way for an undemocratic takeover of government.

Perhaps, the most cheery news for most Nigerians especially parents and students, is the end of an over five month old strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities which drew the curtain on the turbulent political year 2013.

Copyright PUNCH.