Chuks Okocha in this report, argued that while the leadership style of the leaders of the Eighth Senate was pro-people, the current Senate seems to pander to the wishes of the Executive Arm to the detriment of the short-changed Nigerian voters
The way and manner the Senate handled the electoral reforms bill has brought the lawmakers under serious criticism as a result of its decision to reject the wishes of the voters by tactically refusing to give express approval for the adoption of electronic transmission of election results.
The initiative to amend the electoral act, which first came to the fore in the Eighth National Assembly led by Dr. Bukola Saraki, was aimed at strengthening the credibility of the electoral process by ensuring that the results announced at the end of elections reflect the actual votes cast by the electorate.
Though not officially enshrined in the status books, the transmission of election results online was first used in the conduct of the Edo State governorship elections in 2020 and later the Ondo State governorship election. The credibility of the two elections was the evidence of the improvement the electronic transmission of results could bring to the electoral process.
Before the two elections, the previous elections in the country were characterised by voter apathy following the realisation by the voters that widespread electoral frauds during elections had made their votes irrelevant.
It is on record that the Eighth National Assembly successfully passed the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2017 thrice but on each occasion, President Muhammadu Buhari who was then scheming for his re-election in the 2019 polls found one reason or the other to withhold his assent to the bill.
It was the general impression and sadly so, that one of the reasons why the bill was turned down by the President was to protect his personal interest against the national interest.
Now, it seems that the reason the Bill was not signed into law was because the President and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) were opposed to the aspect that they believed could frustrate their ambition to win the elections. At least, the bulk of the Bill passed by the defunct Senate and the one recently considered by the present Senate Committee on INEC are the same, except that the current legislators had voted to water down one of the most progressive initiatives of the last Assembly – the electronic transmission of election results.
The question now is: How did Saraki and his colleagues in the Eighth Senate as well as the Eighth House of Representatives headed by Hon. Yakubu Dogara made the passage of the Electoral Act possible without any rancour or crisis?
The answer to this was in the ability of the two former presiding officers to ignore the body language of the Executive Arm and manage different interests to align with the interest of the masses.
This is called leadership! This is where the capacity of the leadership of each chamber, their popularity or acceptance among members, the motive and interest of the leadership as well as their loyalty to common cause come into play.
Saraki and Dogara enjoyed solid relationship, popularity and acceptance with and among their members. And this is because both men refused to be dictated to by any power centre outside the legislature. Rather, the external force that dictated to Saraki, Dogara and their colleagues were the people – the electorate.
Under Saraki’s watch, hardly was there a time a Senator insisted on division of the Senate during voting on issues, except during voting for the purpose of amending the Constitution. Division of the chambers for the purpose of voting during constitution amendment process is a compulsory method necessary to fulfill the provision of the constitution on the issue of two-third or three-fifth support for the issues to be amended.
But adopting division for the purpose of accurately deciding the position of each member on issues in the legislature literally means the lawmakers are divided and cannot achieve a consensus.
Saraki usually tried to get the entire chamber to achieve consensus through debate and also through his transparent leadership style.
Consensus is easily achieved once the chamber toes the path preferred by the generality of the people who are the constituents of the legislators.
To determine the people’s preference, Saraki usually gauged public opinion through the press, and the civil society groups.
He was known to have commissioned opinion polls and sounded out people across the diverse sections of the national demography.
This is called leadership and it greatly worked well for him as the chairman of the Eighth National Assembly
It is therefore easy to mobilise lawmakers to support a Bill whose purpose is patriotic, rather than partisan; broad, rather than narrow; creative and problem-solving, rather than conservative or uninspiring.
That is why throughout the tenure of the Eighth Senate, it was said that Senators congregated to work for Nigeria, not for party or for personal interest.
However, the people’s perception about the current Senate is that its position on bills or other issues is based on body language of the Presidential Villa wants and the ruling party.
Instead of the leadership of the Ninth Senate to have a strong relationship and control over the members, the members are mobilised, co-ordinated and controlled by external forces outside the chamber.
Thus, what happened to the issue of the electronic transmission of election results would not have happened under Saraki and Dogara, as the two leaders effectively deployed their experience, focus and staff quality to improve legislative performance and delivery on the agenda set at the commencement of the legislative session in 2015.
That is why some members of the current Senate and even members of the public miss the dynamism, focus, innovation and brilliance of the Saraki era in the handling of the amendment of the Electoral Act.
Many political analysts have wondered why the President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan and some of the members of the Senate leadership refused to learn from the pro-people strategy of the Eighth Senate.
Pandering to the whims and caprices of the Presidential Villa and the APC is what Lawan misinterpreted as collaborating with the President or being on the same page with the Executive Arm.
Many Nigerians have however concluded that the desperation by the current leadership of the Senate to please President Muhammadu Buhari and be in the good books of the executive have robbed it of the strategic finesse, tactical sophistication and popular appeal needed in handling the prevalent, and contending issues that have plagued Nigeria.
