REBELLION and dissent have always been the hallmark of mankind on earth and even angels in heaven if the Biblical account, of how former angel Lucifer was chased from heaven into the world, is taken into consideration.
As the story goes, Lucifer was an influential angel loved by God and was considered to be what can be referred to, in modern political circles, as a key member of God’s ‘kitchen’ Cabinet .
However, he led a rebellion, fell out of favour and had to be expelled from heaven. That conflict has some semblance to the ongoing crisis in the National Assembly.  The Holy book teaches us that Lucifer, the devil, now roams around the world planning to kill and destroy mankind.
Even the Shiite and Sunni divide that has been shaping events in the Arabic and Persian world since the passing away of Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Unto Him) is also said to be attributable to a disagreement amongst his followers over how the prophet’s successor should emerge. That conflict can also be likened to the crisis in the National Assembly.  According to research from Council On Foreign Relations with one side believing that a member of the prophet’s family should succeed him and the other preferring one of the high ranking clerics to mount the saddle, the stage was set for dissent and eventually, the schism in the Islamic world which has endured for centuries.
Magna Carta, a treaty signed in 1215 BC between some aggrieved British business barons who wanted change and threatened to go to war against King John of England in the 13th century in protest over tyrannical taxes levied by the King, is also relevant to the conflict in the National Assembly.
Before the Magna Carta, British Kings were demi-gods who could simply say ‘off with his head’ and the person was as good as dead but the treaty set boundaries and limited the powers of kings. Today, the bulwark of the rule of law – socio-economic freedom and independence of citizens within the ambit of the law –  which the British governance system epitomises, owe its origin to the Magna Carta treaty which was a product of dissent like the one currently going on in the National Assembly.
Until the American war of revolution and independence, the United States of America, USA, which is now the most powerful nation in the world was under the apron strings of Great Britain, the preeminent global hegemony of yore. As the foremost superpower of those days owing to the British Navy’s superior seafaring prowess and unrivaled marine warfare capacity, countries as far flung as the USA, Australia, India and Canada were part of the British empire which was also stretched to as far as Africa and the Caribbean.
It is not only that the USA of today was a satellite post of Great Britain (native red Indians are the original dwellers), America actually became a country after Britain sent her citizens considered to be outlaws and later some puritans (religious sects under persecution) to the plantation farms that she had established in New England-the original name of the USA. Over time, USA- the British colony became prosperous and it was obligatory on her to be paying tax to Britain being part of the British Empire.
Borrowing a leaf from the events in Britain that resulted in the Magna Carta treaty, there was dissent and a revolt in parliament as legislators questioned the rationale for continuously paying tax to the British authorities that in their view had no input on how their income was generated. The quest for freedom from overbearing Britain by USA is akin to the National Assembly crisis which arose from the determination of legislators to choose their leaders. The revolt metamorphosed  into the revolutionary/war of independence led by George Washington who became the first USA president after securing independence from British colonialist. That USA act of resistance is the offspring of today’s liberty embodied in the rule of law which gives us the right to choose how we are ruled and who determines who rules over us.
Nigeria returned to parliamentary democracy in 1999 which is barely 16 years ago. During that period, her practice of democracy has been deepening, albeit slowly, but dissent and revolt have also been part of her evolution.
At inception in 1999, arising from his military background of autocracy,  command and control, the then President Olusegun Obasanjo (instead of  addressing respective governors by their names) called them by the names of their respective states as he did with military governors during his reign as the military head of state in the 1970s.
Owing to the political naivety prevailing at that time, governors were practically in awe of president Obasanjo who reprimanded and branded them  “owambe ” governors when a large number of them (soon after they were sworn into office) in 1999 hopped off to London to attend the socialite, Terry Waya’s 40th birthday at the prestigious Dorchester hotel in London.
Parliamentary democracy was in such infancy that the ‘Lord of The Manor’ mentality cascaded down the hierarchy. At state govt levels, governors determined who became legislators both at the state level or at the national level. This meant that, more often than not, members of states House of Assembly and House of Representatives as well as senators were tied to the apron strings of governors. At that time, if a governor asked a senator to jump, he would probably ask, how high? Ok, may be l have exaggerated that aspect a bit, but there was really no independence of thought or action amongst politicians in those days as the mantra, ‘party is supreme’ , was a refrain and culture not to be violated but rather respected like a sacred covenant. Let’s not even cascade it down to the local government chairmen level because they have been more often than not ‘errand boys’ or ‘door mats’ of governors or any ally the governors decide to concede power to in the local government area. Perhaps it’s in a bid to arrest the governance decay at the local government level that President Buhari specifically mentioned in his inaugural speech that under his watch, local government system would be overhauled.
Back in the days, any inkling of a deviation from the party’s directives or apparent romance with the opposition party was tagged anti-party activity and attracted severe sanctions.
With the passage of time, those practices are now the exception rather than the norm as politicians have literarily come of age and thus more independent minded as opposed to being guided by herd mentality.
I have embarked on the above historical excursion, chronicling all the landmark and tumultuous events by digging all the way down to the origin of mankind and dissent that l have cited to enable readers gain better and broader perspectives and insights into the National Assembly crisis. This is necessary because up to the present moment, conversations about the crisis in the National Assembly have been narrowly confined to four factors; (1) The rivalry between APC and PDP parties; (2) Supremacy battle between the Unity and Integrity caucuses in NASS; (3) Personality clash between Bukola Saraki and APC national leader, Bola Tinubu; (4) Saraki and Rabiu Kwakwanso presidential ambition in 2019.
Contrary to the aforementioned spin which is now trending ,I would argue that the June 9 2015 National Assembly proclamation and the ensuing leadership crisis is more profound than the above-listed mundane issues that it is being ascribed to.
In my view, what the National Assembly crisis reveals is the fundamental ideological differences between the legacy parties that formed the APC. While ACN is ideologically tilted towards imposition of candidates reflecting the widely known penchant by its leaders to hand pick candidates for political offices rooted in party supremacy dogma rather than the more democratic process of party primaries, the PDP is known for its comparatively more liberal disposition to candidates emerging through party primaries. Without blending the two diametrically opposing ideologies, the challenge of clash of cultures and the associated conflict found a forum for its ventilation during NASS proclamation. In the light of the foregoing, the struggle for supremacy between the two ideologies is the crux of the NASS crisis and seeming lethargy in APC and by extension governance in Nigeria. The assertion above is further underscored by the fact that while on one hand, the pro-Saraki and Dogara legislators are denouncing the insistence on use of party diktat as opposed to free and fair elections in choosing their leaders, the Lawan and Gbajabiamila group on the other hand are outraged that the ‘party is supreme’  rule , (anchored on the belief that since the party is the vehicle that brought the candidates therefore its directives can’t be flouted without consequences) is being flouted . A validation to the above assertion is the fact that Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara are of the original PDP stock while Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila are of the ACN.
Having put the crisis in a crucible and identified the rebellion in the National Assembly as a political revolution that has the capacity to usher in changes to Nigerian socio-political landscape, let’s examine how the historical parallels earlier drawn affected society . The rebellion that took place in heaven had consequences for Lucifer- the devil and mankind; the disagreements in leadership in the Islamic world polarised the religion into two diametrically opposing sects with violent outcome; the dissent against an oppressive king’s greed in Britain redefined the power of kings and earned Britons economic freedom and liberties; and the armed resistance to the unfair policies of the colonialist Britain in the USA, strengthened the policy of sovereignty and yielded  independence and freedoms that modern parliamentary democracies are built on.
It is noteworthy that change does not just manifest only in one form, like from PDP and Goodluck Jonathan to APC and Muhamadu Buhari which happened in the March 28, 2015 polls in Nigeria. Change could also come in different dimensions like the Aminu Tambuwal/ Emeka Ihedioha parliamentary ‘coup’ in the House of Representatives 2011 when,  against PDP preference for Mulikat Akande as Speaker, the pair emerged Speaker and deputy respectively. Any keen political observer that looks beyond the ordinary could have easily extrapolated and figured out that since the 2011 defiance in the House of Representatives was allowed to stand, it was inevitable that there would be high possibility of a re-enactment by Yakubu Dogara/ Yusuf Lasun in the green chamber in 2015. So it does not surprise me that the rebellion driven by legislators’ thirst for independence has now extended to the Red chamber with Bukola Saraki/ Ike Ekweremadu emerging as senate president and deputy respectively in the 8th Senate.
In a nutshell, it is a struggle between two main ideologies fused into the APC (a conglomeration of four and half parties with diametrically opposing ideologies) that is the reason for the existing political firestorm in APC and the National Assembly proclamation was just the lightening rod.
That being the case, a simple solution could have been for APC to quickly imbibe the culture of inclusiveness but it is not that simple when a motley crowd of politicians with assorted philosophies and their huge egos are involved . That is why the internal power struggle which could have faded away soon after, has seemingly become a Siamese twins with APC.
As soon as the principle of rotation of power amongst the co-operating zones was breached in 2011,(when Jonathan failed to allow power return to the North), the glue became weak, resulting in the crumbling of the pie as aggrieved stakeholders revolted culminating in the party’s loss in the 2015 polls.
APC should wake up to the fact that it is no longer five small pies being shared by a few homogenised politicians from different regions but it is now a huge pie comprised of four to five pies mixed together ( not yet blended) that should cater to the palates of politicians with a variety of appetites and tastes spread across Nigeria.
As they say in operations management, when a problem is identified, it is 50 percent solved.
So having put a finger on the problem besetting the party, instead of sticking to their guns by refusing to shift grounds, what should be of paramount interest to the warring APC apparatchik and national Assembly legislators is the manner in which the conflicts that l earlier referenced  (which are analogous to the dissent in the National Assembly) were resolved and the effect of the resolution on society.
In the case of Britain and the USA , there was settlement via the Magna Carta treaty of 1215 which nullified the war which could have been fought between the barons and the oppressive British King John in the 13th century and in the USA , although there was a war between the British colonialists army and American Revolution/independence army, the war was resolved with victory for USA subsequently leading to independence.
Strikingly, Western parliamentary democracy that we now practice was advanced by the two watershed events -British Magna Carta which strengthened the rule of law and USA revolutionary war of independence which solidified due process.
However, opposite is the case with the conflict in heaven which has remained unresolved with the expulsion from heaven of the rebellious Lucifer perhaps owing to treachery and by the same token, the rift in the Islamic religion remains unresolved with the Sunnis led by Saudi Arabia in the Arab world and the Shiites with leadership from Iran in the Persian world as sworn enemies as sides in the conflict have failed to find a common ground for settlement for less than altruistic reasons.
Evidently, it is the unresolved conflict in Christian heaven that forced Lucifer into the world with the trademark of sorrow, tears and blood foisted on humanity by Lucifer-the satan, just as it is the unresolved leadership disagreement in Islam that are largely responsible for most of the turmoil in the Middle East and to a large extent terrorism related human catastrophes in the world.
Check it out; practically all the major conflicts on earth are religion-induced, Christianity and Islam alike.
Of course, there is limit to rebellion by party members and being fixated on dogmas by party officials can have grave consequences.
From the events that l chronicled, it is clear that negotiated settlements in Britain and USA have proven to be more efficacious and beneficial to humanity than expulsion of Lucifer from heaven and the evil/calamitous consequences or the lingering disagreement in Islamic leadership resulting in the protracted Sunni-Shiite divide that has culminated into numerous conflicts with humongous human catastrophes.
It is now left to politicians to chose from both outcomes, the most noble and progressive path to follow. The satisfactory settlements in Britain and USA which now form the bulwark of democracy or the unresolved conflicts in Christian and in the Islamic world responsible for most of the calamities and wars afflicting humanity?
After 16 years of practice , today’s politician ,to a large extent, has weaned his or herself of the appendages known as ‘feeding bottle’ syndrome to the extent that the independence of legislators has been incremental from the 5th in1999 to the current 8th National Assembly as legislators who are serving their 4th term would attest.
These and similar slow but steady changes in the political arena, may be deemed to be abhorrent steps in some quarters(party is supreme advocates),but in my candid reckoning, they are democracy baby steps and signs of the much anticipated maturing democracy which are only possible through continuous practice.
As odd as it may appear to some aggrieved members of the ruling party, the truth is that a senate president from APC and deputy from PDP is evidence of a steadily but quietly deepening democracy and it is good for democracy and better for the Nigerian people.
More than anything else, it demonstrates the noble act of reaching across the aisle by politicians which  in essence means voting across party lines also referred to as bi-partisanism and  is a welcome development for Nigeria’s democracy, especially from international perspective.
Even in mature democracies of the Western Hemisphere, what happened on June 9 in the National Assembly is a rare act of brinksmanship; so in addition to the rare feat of an incumbent president accepting defeat without rancour, as Goodluck Jonathan did (African heads of state are known to hang on to power even after defeat), Nigeria has scored another first in democracy ethos and culture so she deserves more accolades for such lofty accomplishment in her journey. Just as Jonathan’s early concession of defeat defined his presidency in a lofty manner, it is to president Buhari’s glory that the legislative arm attained more independence and better still under APC watch.
Most importantly, parliamentarians should not allow political machismo taken too far, blithe the enviable democracy records which Nigeria is currently basking in as encomiums continue to be showered on Nigeria globally. Some of our leaders are oblivious of the fact that such democracy ‘good ‘ behaviours are rewarded by the western powers. South Africa ‘stole’ the limelight from Nigeria when the hitherto apartheid country elected her first black president, the late Nelson Mandela in 1994 ahead of Nigeria after the then military head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, failed to keep his promise of returning Nigeria to democratic civilian rule following his annulment of June 12,1993 election believed to have been won by Moshood Abiola. Had that 1993 election been sustained and parliamentary democracy returned to Nigeria , all the global attention beamed on South Africa in 1994 would have been on Nigeria and that would have boosted our global governance ranking as well as buoy our economic development. Ghana, Nigeria’s neighbor, has also been gaining global adulation since that country became the first in West Africa to successfully transfer power from opposition president, John Kufuor, whose party lost to late John Atta-Mills of the opposition-a milestone Nigeria just attained in 2015. It is not by sheer coincidence that President Buhari was invited by the G7-world’s richest countries to their recent meeting in Paris, France after the successful change of baton of government in Nigeria .The proposed hosting of Nigeria’s president Buhari by President Barrack Obama of USA in the White House this July for a similar reward is also reflective of our new status in global democracy ranking. Keep in mind that President Obama has visited Africa a couple  times since assumption of office in 2008 and avoided Nigeria and Kenya while visiting only Ghana and South Africa, the two democracy-compliant countries (Senegal and Botswana are the other two) in the course of the visits.
The reason is not farfetched. Kenya’s election that degenerated into a messy tribal war (ethnic cleansing) with a massive human carnage and Nigeria’s wobbly and opaque democracy practice are responsible for the snub by the USA whose foreign policy is geared towards hoisting democracy flags in countries  all over the world. But following Kenya’s largely transparent election that brought President Uhuru Kenyatta to power recently and the subsequent political stability, President Obama is on his way to Kenya, the land of his progenitors, this July. By the same token, the successful transition from PDP’s Jonathan to APC’s Buhari in Nigeria has also earned Africa’s most populous country, the proposed hosting of President Buhari in the White House by the American leader on July 21.
Make no mistake about it, the club of the world ‘s richest nations -G7 and the world’s most powerful nation, USA , don’t engage in such political  intimacy with developing countries without a bounty to go with it.
Already, the G7 has promised to help Nigeria address  items on the wish-list that Buhari took to Paris (fighting terrorism and  bolstering economy) and ahead of the proposed hosting of Buhara in the Oval Office, $5 million dollars has already been pledged towards fighting Boko Haram insurgency by the USA. As long as the interactions with G-7 and Obama in the Oval Office would facilitate more trade between Africa and the rest of the world rather than mere aid, as the case has been over the years, deepening of parliamentary democracy in Nigeria is welcome.
In any case , anybody entertaining any doubts about the sustainability of Nigeria’s rising democratic profile owing to the unprecedented steady strides recorded so far by both the executive and legislative arms, only need to recall that even as a late adopter of the GSM telephone concept in year 2000, after less than 15 years of operation, Nigeria has become one of the fastest growing markets for the service in the world. So in essence, Nigeria and Nigerians are by nature fast learners as evidenced by the aforementioned developments in the economic and political spheres. Need l refer to the phenomenal growth in the movie industry where Nollywood is now the fastest growing movie producers in the world, overtaking Bollywood of India and Nollywood of USA to buttress my point about how fast Nigerians can imbibe concepts and make success of it overnight? Put in another way, to say that Nigerians are quick adopters and over-achievers in so phenomenal progress in the political sphere cannot be an anathema.
For the avoidance of doubt, l’m not by any means advocating brazen disobedience of party directives which can disruptive or encouraging unbridled political revolution of some sorts (President Buhari has emphasised party supremacy at APC NEC meeting) but l have gone into all these detailed preambles to frame a wider perspective and context within which the assertion of independence of the legislature in the true spirit and letter of separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judiciary arms in a democracy can be better understood. As opposed to condoning, l roundly condemn the unfortunate incidents of legislators resorting to brawls in their chambers instead of appropriately resolving their differences through horse trading, but it must be said that the desire to achieve independence in choosing their leaders is justifiable and commendable in so far as it has helped deepen democracy in Nigeria. This belief is underscored by the fact that the fundamental purpose of transformational leadership which APC promised Nigerians during its campaign is to engage in transformational changes as opposed to maintaining alleged PDP impunity status quo.
Changes in the National Assembly, which so far is the only elective arm of government that has taken shape (The executive arm is still in preparation) in this new dispensation, should be seen as that realisation of one of the changes promised by APC.
The assertion above brings to mind a remark by Hilary Clinton, former USA Secretary of State and current Democratic Party presidential aspirant that:  “One thing we know for sure is that change is certain, progress is not.” The former First Lady of USA seems to have been talking about Nigeria because on March 28, 2015, Nigerians made a change by electing Muhammadu Buhari as president. While that change is now certain, it’s left to President Buhari and APC after taking over the reins of government ,to make progress which is not certain unless they make it happen.
It should indeed be a progressive pride that the parliament is more independent under President Buhari’s  watch and under the APC ‘broom’ revolution, so instead of unbraiding the so-called agent provocateurs (Saraki and Dogara), APC should embrace them.
After all, APC is not entirely blameless for the political fall out in National Assembly, albeit inadvertently. This is because instead of addressing the incompatibility of her legacy parties ab-initio, APC was blindsided by its overarching desire to capture power at the centre and thus postponed the difficult conversation which is a pre-requisite for sharing power which like a suppressed volcano erupted in National Assembly on June 9.
From the foregoing, the National Assembly crisis is clearly the opportunity cost for (so to speak) postponing the consequences or fall outs from the storming stage of the four stages of entity formation thesis enunciated by Gary Tuckman which are: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing.
President Buhari’s recent comment to party faithful at the party National Working Committee, NWC meeting is quite instructive here. The comment,   “We have won the battle but not the war, ” seems to align with the opinion above. Based on the presidential comment, I’m speculating that Mr. President is concerned that though APC succeeded in the quest for taking over power at the centre in the past three months, it appears that the party is now spending the time it should have applied implementing policies and programmes to blending the multifarious interests/ideologies in the merger.
Little wonder then that despite APC’s explanation that the delay in forming cabinet is due to the extensive and rigorous work required to unravel hidden burdens and perhaps assets unexplained in the handover note received late from the outgone government, most Nigerians have remained implacable. The unsavoury situation is sadly fueling the growing perception (locally and internationally) that the party’s un- dynamic governance style, falls short of expectations. These are early negative appellations which the party must dispel before they stick just as PDP was tarred with the corruption brush which it could not wash off before its fall from grace.
If these teething challenges in APC  are deftly handled, it will be like the very successful and smooth merger of Nissan and Renault and if it fails, it will remind of the Mercedes and BMW failed merger in the auto industry.
With the unbending technocratic impulses that the ruling party has been eliciting ( demanding apologies from the erring parliamentarians ) and with the Senate President and Speaker also not being magnanimous enough in victory (by defying the party’s further directives instead of making some concessions), the ruling party may be sending the wrong signals that it is unprepared to manage the aftershocks of the surprising political maneuvers that manifested as dissent in the National Assembly.
To avoid the looming political paralysis, APC should cut the hubris by placing less emphasis on diktats and President Buhari should take a lead by initiating a sort of modus vivendi to end the unfortunate impasse even though that would amount to controverting his avowed principle of non-interference in the leadership affairs of the National Assembly.
After all, conventional wisdom dictates that extra ordinary situations, demand extra ordinary actions.