Oyegun, Saraki and APC Unity

JUST last month, I wrote in this column that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) must own its government. The discordant tunes were getting more than plenty. It was as if the government was on one side and the party in another planet. That cannot augur well for development and what the business minded would describe as ease of doing business in the polity. Easily, it yields ground to the emergence of a cabal.

I wrote then that the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) which was displaced from the centre in 2015  perfected what it called “family affair” for most of its time in power and that it lost the invincibility when the crisis of 2013 crept in, and essentially when it jettisoned the family affair model.

The signals were really getting out of hand and everything was point pointing towards discordant governance. In October, the two chambers of the National Assembly devoted more than a week to debates and passage of resolutions on ways out of economic recession. The Senate passed 22 resolutions, which the red chamber believed could help the executive in reining the economy on the path of progress. The House of Representatives resolved that President Muhammadu Buhari should visit the Assembly to lay out his economic blueprint and ways out of recession. The senate equally concurred to this.

A letter was sent to the President to communicate all these points. The President and the Presidency however chose to be silent. As if the lawmakers were busy bodies on this matter. The President forwarded the list of Career and Non-Career Ambassadorial nominees to the Senate as well as the nominees for NDDC positions. The list of Career Officers escaped being lynched only via the wisdom of Senate President Bukola Saraki, while that of the Non-Career nominees was not that lucky. Ditto for some nominees of the NDDC and the National Communications Commission, who were rejected by the lawmakers.

The Senate also openly castigated the executive for submitting a Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) that is “empty” and unrealistic. Initially, it rejected the MTEF and offered to return the same to the executive for adjustments but the chamber later persuaded itself and agreed to work out an acceptable MTEF alongside the House of Representatives. If you are looking for evidence of a government on the path of total breakdown, you may not need to go further. Things were looking gloomy ahead of the presentation of the money bill and no one knows where the drift would stop.

But last week, the national chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun decided to act upon the proposal we put out here weeks ago by calling the very first meeting of the party and the Senate caucus almost two years after his party won the general election. It is never too late anyway.

After the meeting led by Odigie-Oyegun and Senate President Bukola Saraki last Wednesday, the party announced its readiness to midwife a peace deal between the executive and the legislature. The party also declared that the legislature had within the circumstances it found itself done it proud, even without its intervention at critical stages.

It was confirmed that the National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun apologised for calling the meeting deep into the tenure and that he restated his readiness to henceforth play a role in consolidating executive/legislature relations.

He was also quoted as telling Saraki and his colleagues that the party recognises the legislature as the single largest body of elected officials, whose contributions to the solidity of the party cannot be wished away. Sources at the meeting had quoted Oyegun as saying that the legislature is key to the success of his party at the Centre and that the party was equally impressed with the rapprochement between the legislature and the executive in recent times.

“We are impressed about the activities and cooperation extended to the government by the lawmakers in recent times and we believe that the party will play its role to consolidate on this,” Oyegun was quoted as saying.

He was also quoted as saying that the essence of the meeting was to fashion out ways to enhance party unity and ensure that voices speak along similar directions.

Recall that some peace moves instituted within the party had been moribund. There was the effort by Edo state Governor, Adams Oshiomhole and his Sokoto state counterpart  The Progressives Governors Forum led by Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha is also leading another frontier for peace between the executive and the legislature.

Sources at the meeting also quoted Saraki as assuring the APC chairman on behalf of his colleagues that all will be well between the legislature and the executive. He was said to have told Oyegun that the National Assembly was ready to ensure a united and strong APC in the legislature as well as a virile government.

Now that Oyegun has hit the cord needed to fine-tune executive/legislature relations, the APC needs not look back. The party needs to fast tract its move away from the discord that greeted the election of Saraki as Senate President and Speaker Yakubu Dogara in June 2015 and showcase its capacity even within the remaining period left of its four year mandate.