Death of ‘Dogara Zoning-Formula’ : How Reps sacrificed federal character, excluded Igbo

For over 50 days after the House of Representatives was inaugurated, the leadership knew no peace. Sleep apparently took flight from Speaker Yakubu Dogara and his deputy, Yussuf Lasu, while nocturnal meetings, blackmail and accusation of disobedience to the All Progressives Congress, APC, the party that produced them were the order of the day.
But like the 20th-century novelist, Francena H. Arnold, in the book on Christian fiction classic, Not My Will, the Speaker seemed to have been cajoled to submitting to the pressure from the leaders of the party whose interference contributed to the polarisation of the House not only against party lines but also against ethnic leanings.
The announcement of Rep. Femi Gbajabiamila by the Speaker as House Majority Leader took everybody by surprise going by the unfolding events during last Tuesday’s plenary even as  Dogara, at a point during the sitting, ignored the former Minority Leader in the 7th Assembly on  his Point of Order.
There was no inkling that Gbajabiamila, the Lagos State-born lawmaker, would clinch the House Leader position.  It was not that he was not qualified or that he did not merit it, but because of the circumstances surrounding his candidature.
For sure, Gbajabiamila is well versed in legislative business and, as an erudite lawyer with amiable mien, before the contest for the speakership, he had majority support of his colleagues, but the obstacle he had was on those allegedly backing him and the suspicion that external influence would manipulate the lower chamber with his emergence.
The well respected Lagos lawmaker was set to  clinch the House speakership. Not only did he have everything going for him, he was the adopted candidate of the APC. He also emerged the winner of the straw poll conducted about three days to the inauguration of the 8th assembly.
However, Speaker Dogara and some law makers of the party, who were not comfortable with the adoption of Gbajabiamila, were not intimated with the development and they kept on pushing though at that point with slim hope of seeing their aspiration realised.
But the emergence of Senator Bukola Saraki as the Senate President, despite the fact that he was not the APC’s choice for the position as the party had given its backing to Senator Ahmad Lawan who emerged as the preferred candidate in a mock election, was just the magic that changed the equation.
When the North-east geopolitical zone, where Dogara hails from, realised that it had lost the bid to clinch the Senate President due to the political miscalculation committed by the APC leaders on the inauguration day and Saraki outsmarted them, the zone had no option than to quickly circulate information through SMS to lawmakers from the zone to rally round Dogara against the party’s choice, Gbajabiamila, so as to not to lose out completely.
With the victory of Dogara as Speaker, the APC now, through its National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, submitted to the House the names of the lawmakers to occupy the four remaining principal offices in the House as Dogara and  Lasun from the South-west had emerged as the presiding officers in defiance of the party’s decision.
But the Speaker who, to an extent, was ‘rejected’ by the APC and, with the support of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP, members in the House, ignored the party’s directive, insisting on keeping to what he said was the age-long tradition where the spirit of federal character was the guiding principle in the sharing of the principal offices in the House of Reps.
This again did not go down well with the APC leadership which considered the action of Dogara as an affront and this led to the rancorous development in the parliament on June 25 where the warring factions threw caution to the wind and went for each other’s juggler. This development led to an abrupt closure of the House for over four weeks.
Even during the break, series of meetings were convened by the party leadership and the different factions. While the Speaker was adamant that the spirit of federal character should be observed, the APC insisted  that Dogara should respect the supremacy of the party.
Although President Muhammadu Buhari had refrained from interfering in the internal affairs of the House, saying  there should be separation of power, he had, in a meeting with the House factions when the issue appeared to be getting out of hand and also becoming embarrassing to the ruling party, advised that the party’s decision was supreme.
But Mr. President’s intervention appeared not to change anything even as the Speaker replied the APC National Chairman’s letter and told him that for the sake of equity and fair play, the spirit of federal character must be observed.
Besides, Dogara in his reply to Oyegun stated that the letter with the names of four nominees to fill the vacant positions of the principal officers could not be read on the floor of the House due to the pending suits from the North-central and South-east zones who were excluded from the positions going by the letter from the party.
Gbajabiamila and his loyalists had, in a meeting with Buhari, accused Dogara of disobeying the ruling party and hobnobbing with the opposition PDP and called for sanctions.
Despite some of the alleged threat from the APC on Dogara and blackmail from some members of his party, he appeared calm and determined to ensure that all the geopolitical zones were carried along. He also succeeded in dividing the camp of Gbajabiamila.
With this, it was the general belief that the Speaker had stamped his authority on the House and would, ultimately, have his way. Besides, the division in the loyalists camp which saw some of the supporters of Gbajabiamila like Alhassan Ado Doguwa, Pally Iriase, Mohammed Monguno, among others, embraced the sharing formula as enunciated by Dogara, tagged the ‘Dogara formula,’ further made people to believe that Gbajabiamila had lost the struggle.
Some loyalists of Gbajabiamila he went to meet Mr. President without carrying them along and that they were not briefed on the outcome of the meeting and then dumped him in the power squabble.
But as it is said that, in politics, 24 hours is such a long time, about a day to the resumption of plenary last Tuesday, July 28, and being aware that Dogara was determined to implement his decision of ensuring that federal character was observed in the sharing of the positions, the leadership of the APC  impressed it on the President to call for a meeting so as to resolve the crisis before the sitting.
Already, efforts made by the party and the Mediation Committee, led by a  former Speaker and incumbent Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, as well as the Chairman of the APC Governor’s Forum, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, did not achieve result.
In the meeting at the Presidential Villa on Monday with the APC House caucus, Buhari was said to have told the members to ensure  amicable resolution of the leadership crisis before the plenary and also reminded members on the need to respect the supremacy of the party. Though it was reported that the meeting was deadlocked, with the insistence of Buhari on the respect for the supremacy of the party, the Speaker was said to have been cajoled and intimidated to accepting the party’s position.
It was gathered that when the lawmakers left the Presidential Villa, the Consolidation Group, which is the camp supporting Dogara, met and maintained that there was no going back in respecting the principle of federal character.
However, in the morning of the day of resumption, it was gathered that a leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, paid a visit to Buhari; though the details of what transpired was not made public, an informed source disclosed that it was for the President to compel the Speaker to ensure that Gbajabiamila was named the House Leader.
On the resumption day, Tuesday, at about 10:05am, Dogara arrived the National Assembly complex in the company of the National Security Adviser, NSA, and the Deputy Speaker. The Divisional Police Officer, DPO, in-charge of the National Assembly also led the security at the Assembly gate to screen visitors into the complex.
As plenary commenced, there was calm and orderliness in the chamber with the normal legislative business going on and there was no inkling that there was going to be any surprise especially in the composition of the Body of Principal Officers.
However, midway into the sitting, the Speaker handed over proceedings to his Deputy and stepped out of the chamber. It was also observed that Gbajabiamila and Ado Doguwa, who had been pencilled down to emerge as Majority leader,  also left the chamber and all of them met in the office of the Clerk of the House, Mohammed Sani-Omolori, for about one hour.
When Dogara came back, about 3:27pm, he announced the composition of the principal officers starting with the opposition PDP, which saw the former Deputy Majority Leader, Hon. Leo Ogor, being named the Minority Leader. The Speaker also announced other principal officers from the opposition. Then on the principal officers from the ruling party, it was the greatest surprise of the moment as there was the expectation that Doguwa had been tipped to emerge as the Majority Leader, but behold Doguwa was mentioned as the Chief Whip and, immediately, Gbajabiamila was announced the Majority Leader.
The announcement, however, attracted standing ovation for Dogara as he was hailed to have conceded the position to his arch-rival in the contest for the House presiding officer.
It was gathered that Mr. President and the leadership of the party influenced the announcement. Meanwhile, this has rubbished the spirit of federal character the Speaker was preaching and also made the South-east the loser in the whole political chase game.
By Johnbosco Agbakwuru