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Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Senate Presidency: The intrigues, from Enwerem to Saraki

Leaders of Nigeria’s most distinguished Club of 109 are men and women who have played politics to the extreme as was seen yesterday. The first president of the Senate in the Fourth Republic, Senator Evan(s) Enwerem emerged under the same controversial circumstances as Senator Bukola Saraki did yesterday. Enwerem became Senate President against the desire of the majority of his party members in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who in a straw poll had chosen Senator Chuba Okadigbo. Okadigbo had days after his emergence as senator-elect traversed the country visiting every senator-elect to canvass support for his ambition to be Senate President.  But days before the leadership contest, President Olusegun Obasanjo moved against him and used the minority parties, the Alliance for Democracy, AD, All Peoples Party, APP and a sprinkling of PDP senators.  In the end, Enwerem triumphed principally because Obasanjo backed him against the desire of the majority of PDP senators. Only yesterday, President Muhammadu Buhari who had vowed not to follow the same path refused to interfere and despite pressures stood his ground.  A last-minute move to force him into action after the PDP endorsed the All Progressives Congress, APC rebel candidate, Saraki was unsuccessful as the rebels refused to come for the meeting insisting that the president did not call the meeting.  Enwerem’s stay in office was for barely five months before his removal by a majority of senators in November, 1999. That was the only one of two successful impeachment moves against any principal official of the Senate in the Fourth Republic. It happened on the day that his backer, President Obasanjo jetted out of the country. And in came Okadigbo, who was himself removed in July, 2000.  Okadigbo’s era had its full surfeit of parliamentary drama. Anyim Pius Anyim, who succeeded him, led a Senate that moved from subservience to Obasanjo to a senate that tackled the president and almost impeached him.  Having handled the tail of a lion, Anyim in his valedictory address as the life of the Senate came to an end said he was leaving the PDP.  After Anyim, a dutiful Obasanjo protégée in the person of Adolphus Wabara emerged. The gist around was that Wabara became Senate President even before his election as a senator was confirmed. The Wabara Senate wisely shied away from the indiscriminate scrutiny of the administration as Obasanjo had warned. There is more to this on Vanguard.
Saraki

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