Review… APC’s opposition burden – and it’s not Fayose

In from Stanley Azuakola . . .
On Thursday, Ekiti lawmakers gathered in the state assembly for a special session with Gov. Ayo Fayose in attendance. In fact, the sitting was all about him. The lawmakers took turns praising Fayose, hailing him as the savior of democracy in Nigeria. Then they unanimously passed a resolution which declared him as “Nigeria’s opposition leader.” The exuberant lawmakers knew that their resolution carries no weight outside their assembly complex, but politics is about symbols.
Fayose takes the job of opposing President Muhammadu Buhari very seriously. On any given week, Fayose criticises or makes an allegation against the president at least twice. Last week alone, he accused Buhari of manipulating the Taraba governorship tribunal results in two different statements; he asked Nigerians to hold Buhari responsible if anything happens to former National Security Adviser, Dasuki Sambo; and he also warned that if Buhari is not checked, Nigeria will turn into a one party dictatorship. Those are just for last week.
Despite Fayose’s energetic and vocal opposition, the man who has turned out to be the more effective PDP opposition leader is the senator from Enugu and deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu.
Ekweremadu is the PDP man who has troubled the APC leadership and the presidency the most and he hasn’t even needed to talk much to achieve it. After learning of Ekweremadu’s victory on June 6 to become deputy senate president, Pres. Buhari reportedly described it as “unacceptable”, likening it to “winning a battle but losing the war.” That’s the power Ekweremadu wields. Every day that passes with him as the Senate’s number two man is an announcement to the APC: No, the PDP is not dead.
On Wednesday, the senate president Bukola Saraki attended the swearing-in of new ministers by President Muhammadu Buhari at the villa. In his absence, Ekweremadu presided over the senate for the first time in this Eight Assembly. Several APC senators stormed out of the plenary in protest. “We would not let Saraki hand over the senate to a PDP man,” they said. Unruffled by the drama, Ekweremadu went on with his duties. He is an experienced operator serving his fourth term in the senate and knows that there’s nothing the APC can do to him. They need at least 72 senators to impeach him whereas there are not even up to 60 APC senators, and not all of them are opposed to Ekweremadu for now.

Ekweremadu is showing signs of a mastery of the long game. He knows that with patience, he would have several opportunities down the line to add salt to the APC’s open sores. In addition to presiding over the Senate in Saraki’s absence, the deputy senate president is chairman of Constitution Review Committee; and he is also empowered by convention to collect and supervise the final budget documents in preparation of the Appropriation Bill, which is the nation’s most important yearly piece of legislation. He is the chairman of the Governing Council of the National Institute of Legislative Studies (NILS) and also represents the Nigerian Legislature at the ECOWAS Parliament as Speaker. Imagine, an opposition lawmaker representing Nigeria internationally. It’s hard to find a precedence for that anywhere in the world. But that is the power Ekweremadu holds right now.
It is perhaps an understanding of these things that made Ekweremadu to not join his PDP colleagues on October 29 when they staged a walkout in protest against the ministerial screening of former Rivers governor, Rotimi Amaechi. Sen. Godswill Akpabio, the minority leader, led that charge but Ekweremadu stayed put on his front row seat watching with a blank expression as his party men expressed their right.
He did not give anyone the opportunity to say, “Oh, he is partisan. He walked out with his PDP colleagues.” The statement he was making was that as deputy senate president, he is a leader of the entire house, not just of one caucus, so he will sit there as long as the senate remains in plenary, and the APC better gets used to him. That’s a strong opposition statement which dozens of Fayose’s press releases will never match.

Read also: Plenary: Lawan, Akume walk out on Ekweremadu

To add to it, Ekweremadu, a lawyer, can trade punches when he wants to in a way that irks the APC. One month after Buhari’s inauguration, at a time when investigations were ongoing over an alleged forgery of Senate rules by Ekweremadu, the man decided to ignore that issue and take the offensive instead. “I am worried about the resurgence of Boko Haram activities in Nigeria,” he said.
“Shortly before the inauguration of the present government, the country had almost rolled back Boko Haram and its activities in every part of Nigeria – from Adamawa to Borno to Yobe.” That statement threw the APC camp into a response frenzy. Femi Adesina, Lai Mohammed, Osita Okechukwu, Yayi Adeola, everyone issued a response to Ekweremadu. He replied none.
At the PDP national conference on Thursday, Ekweremadu delivered the most scathing attack against the APC and Buhari in a way that excited his party men.
“No campaign promise, I repeat, no promise made by the present APC administration has been kept.
“They promised to scale up the exchange rate of our currency by making one naira equal to one US dollar. Have they kept this promise?
“They promised to bring back the Chibok girls in three months. Have they brought back the Chibok Girls?
“They promised to pay N5,000 to 25 million unemployed youths. Have they paid a kobo to any youth?
“They promised free meals to our children in the schools. Have they given any?
“They recently promised to end the Boko Haram insurgency in December 2015. We earnestly hope and pray that this particular promise is kept in the overall interest of our nation,” he said.
At that conference, Ekweremadu showed again why as the highest ranked PDP politician in the country, he remains the party’s loudest voice and most visible reminder that the PDP is not yet dead. Fayose, on the other hand, was not even at that meeting.

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