The Machina And APC’s ‘Machinations’ That Negate Imagination
By Ozumi Abdul
AREWA AGENDA – Just when Nigerians are still gnashing their teeth and grappling with the realities of quantum problems they are confronted with in the country, such as fuel and naira scarcities that have unavoidably subjected them to untold hardships, both in their private lives and businesses, yesterday spectacularly presented a comic relief of sort to their troubling predicaments, which of course would at least take some edges off the realities of their harsh situations on the interim; It would give some things to think intermittently about how prepared are we to practice democracy as a country, even though our democratic experience is still a nascent one.
The ‘comic relief’ here contextually implies the supreme court yesterday’s affirmation of the Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial candidate for Yobe north; a judgement that will continue to remain affronts and slaps on the face of country’s judicial system that has already been suffering from monumental reputational crisis of lack of independence, corruption and living in the shadow of the executive.
How would the arm of government that is so revered and venerated as the keeper of a common man’s hope paradoxically turns out to be the killer of his hope? This will be a question begging for a million answers in the minds of Nigerians in years to come.
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During a majority judgment delivered on Monday, the apex court allowed the appeal filed by the APC against Bashir Machina’s candidature.
Delivering the judgment, three out of a five-member panel agreed with the position of the APC that the suit at the trial court ought not to have commenced via an originating summons since it contained allegations of fraud.
“The bedrock of the suit shows that there were allegations of fraudulent practices against the appellants,” Centus Nweze said, and that sealed it for the Senate President.
Recall that one of the most fascinating and intriguing stories in the recent political epoch was the reincarnation of David versus Goliath in the APC’s Yobe North senatorial primary election between Senate President, Ahmed Lawan and Bashir Machina. It’s a story of unbridled greed, repudiating selfishness and inordinate ambition.
Many Nigerians watched in bated breaths the twists and turns and the unfurling of events, as the APC trampled upon one of its own in a shameless attempt to do the bidding of another of its bigwigs.
The APC, never minded spurning the 2022 Electoral Act, jettisoned any merest pretence to due process, when it forwarded the name of the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, as its candidate for the Yobe North senatorial seat.
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Senator Lawan wanted to fall back on his birth-righted senate seat (which he eventually got yesterday though) when his impromptu presidential ambition nosedived. Things would have fallen in place beautifully and easily were it not for the new Electoral Act.
In the natural order, a rat does not have two tails. Senator Lawan wanted to break this order when he situated himself as a rat with two tails: one in the presidential election; the other in the senatorial election, where he has perpetuated himself for close to two decades.
He and the APC, were attempting to prove how convenient it is for a man with an elephant in his kitty, to muscle off a cricket from another man, using his powers.
Bashir Machina had admirably held tenaciously unto his victory, before yesterday’s supreme court judgement, successfully wading off every attempt to shove him off his earned candidature.
Machina’s eventual victory in appeal court will be an inkling of a new order where heft and braggadocio will not triumph over due process, but the supreme court bottled it up yesterday, irrespective of the legal jargons they might have conjured in delivering the judgement in the favour of the Senate President on Monday to force the morsel of falsehood down our throats to believe that the judgement was rightly served.
To many Nigerians, Senator Lawan passes across as an uninspiring leader, leading one of the most insouciant, blithe assemblies. The senator’s current assembly, under his dull leadership, has raised the bar of bootlicking and rubber-stamping to a scathing level.
His inglorious exit of the power arena would have thus, be considered a refreshing breather, but here we are again with that yesterday supreme court’s comic judgement.
If I’m were President Muhammadu Buhari, who happens to be the overall leader and father of the party I will be prevailing on issue like this, I will be wading into it to ensure the right thing is done without unnecessarily resorting to court issue, but in house internal settlement, as the father of the party whose two of his political children can have faceoffs politically at any given time.
I be protecting that long avowed puritanical integrity I’m long know for, at least in an issue of this nature that is too apparent to a layman to see no matter the temptation of not losing a party’s top gun like Ahmed Lawan.
Now i know some proverbs pass away with the passage of times and eras, because if truly one cannot not eat his cake and have it, then the Senate President in June last year ate his cake and yesterday had it back freshly baked.
God have mercies on the kind of democracy we practice in this part of the world.
Ozumi Abdul is staff writer at PRNIGERIA write from Kano state. He can be reached via [email protected]
