ARE these the final days? Senators of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), want to do Nigeria a favour: save her from squandering her fortune on them.
How? The party's senators-80 of them-argue, in effect, that if they were spared the indignity of going before voters in 2011, Nigeria will develop. Early this month, they sent David Mark, who is currently the President of the Senate, to make the case that their seats be declared unavailable for electoral contest.
The Senators did not identify a personal benefit for themselves. None, apparently. Their concern, they said, is for their beloved country, which should not be denied the benefit of their wealth of experience in the house.
Trying to justify the phenomenon, which is now being publicly referred to as "automatic ticket," Mr. Mark said, "After every four years, after an election, people begin to clamour for their own local government to produce the next Senator...It should be the turn of the local governments who are represented here now to produce the same people in 2011." The man is a genius.
Mark, who was speaking before the party's bigwigs, led by its Chairman, Mr. Vincent Ogbuluafor, described the legislature as central to democracy, and needing the experience of the current class of Senators. He said his group was further recommended by the "harmonious" relationship between them and the Executive arm of government.
Mark was publicly supported a few days later by Ike Ekweremadu, the Deputy Senate President who had just survived a spirited legal challenge of his Enugu West District seat. "What we are trying to copy is the best practices," he told journalists he had dragged to his home to hear his voice. "In America, from where we drew the bulk of the provisions of our constitution, you don't just change parliamentarians...because a lot is spent on training these people. Nigeria has the highest turnover of parliamentarians. And when you send people to seminars, trainings, workshops and they sit in parliament from year to year and at the end of the day, they don't return, those monies are wasted..."
Ekweremadu, it seems, watches the United States only on CNN, with the sound turned off. He may be a Senator, but he does not give the impression of someone who understands the American political system. Otherwise, he is a dishonest man hampered by a very poor memory.
His self-serving argument does not tell Nigerians that nowhere-repeat, Mr. Ekweremadu, nowhere- in the United States would a legislator dare whisper (certainly not in the presence of self-respecting journalists) any words that may be mistaken to mean that he is willing to subvert constitutionally-mandated elections in order to stay in office. That would be the political equivalent of having a coconut broken over your own skull: you cannot possibly partake of it.
None of the journalists before whom he spoke at the press conference in his own home sufficiently challenged the Senator. Maybe the buffet he put before them came with certain conditions, or concoctions. It certainly seems Mr. Ekweremadu believes that the people of his constituency are idiots, but the historic challenge to his seat by Uzo Onyeama proves they are not.
That challenge also provides a strong indication that Mr. Ekweremadu is not eager to go back so soon before the voters to test his popularity. We already know that Mr. Mark, whose "election" in Benue State legislator was similarly questioned all the way through the Electoral Appeals process, does not look forward to having to revalidate himself.
The problem here is the same as we have always had: politicians seeking seeking Ghana-Must-Go sinecures, not responsibility. Under Messrs Mark and Ekweremadu, the Nigerian Senate has not become famous for diligence or achievement. It is not known for its commitment to principle or excellence. If anything, the Senate is the pepper-soup plaza of Nigerian governance. For most Senators, the Upper House is a holiday resort where work is not a requirement, and accountability to constituents not a necessity. The Senate, particularly the PDP Senate, is the national address for self-importance. The PDP Senators clamour for easy and illegal passage to four years on Easy Street is proof. I do not know a single Nigerian who believes that PDP Senators hankering after automatic tickets do so for Nigeria, not self. They are bootleg patriots.
Where are these sub-tenanted Senators when lack of transparency at the highest levels, including in the executive and the legislature, is ruining Nigeria? What are these Senators doing when education, health, anti-poverty and infrastructure schemes are boldly moving forward in many developing countries while Nigeria races backwards?
What have these Senators done about our corruption conundrum? Put that another way, does Ekweremadu care about the widely-advertised corruption allegations against Senator David Mark? What do both men think about the fact that both President Yar'Adua and Vice-President Jonathan are powerfully "fighting" corruption with weapons made of cotton wool, while the wife of the VP, Patience Jonathan-among many privileged others-sit on heinous corruption and money-laundering charges?
What have these Senators done about the blood oath and voodoo penetration of Nigerian politics? Where were they on Okija?
Where were they in the recent Ekiti governorship re-run elections that reconfirmed, before the entire world, that their party abhors change?
Exactly what have these PDP Senators done to move Nigeria forward? Where is the Freedom of Information Act?
My point is that any elected office holder ought to be calculating his re-election chances on the basis of his performance profile, not rigging, which is what this automatic ticket nonsense is. Although PDP officials have said they do not support the idea, Nigerians know that the PDP has no honour. As a concept, the PDP is a contradiction. They will try to find a way to achieve what would be, in effect, the civilian equivalent of a coup: a political party's open-air subversion of the process.
I hope the people of Nigeria, liberating themselves from their innocence, will ensure that those tickets are for the one-way trip away from office for those Senators. It is remarkable that Senator Ekweremadu argues that institutional memory is good for Nigeria. I support that, but constitutional memory, which is the right of the people to decide their representatives at the polls, is even more important. It is the right of the people-subject to the machinations and manipulations of the PDP-to determine whether to send a carpenter or a commercial motorcycle transporter.
True, new Senators may lack training and experience. But they would have something that most of the current crop of PDP legislators do not offer: hope.
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