Of Senate and committee re-composition panic

David MarkTaiwo Adisa writes on the apprehensions and intrigues among senators with regard to the planned recomposition of Senate standing committees, concluding that all are in a bid to claim or reclaim executive seats in the committees.

Composition and re-composition of Senate standing committees are tough assignments for any presiding officer any day. Even as the situation in the Senate has been streamlined to one where a senator is guaranteed a chairmanship or vice chairmanship position, that has not gone far in reducing the tension associated with the planned committees composition in the Senate. The fact that most committee chairmen run the affairs of the committees as chief executives has further compounded what should be an easy condition.

Currently in the Senate, there are 54 committees of 109 members; each senator had emerged either as chairman or vice chairman of a committee. Even at that, there were grumblings when the committees were announced in July 2007. The senators, who failed to emerge as committee chairmen, automatically saw themselves as losers. Such senators immediately flagged off consultations on ways to bounce back to reckoning and it has been endless consultations since then.

A sort of reprieve came their way in July when the Senate leader, Senator Teslim Folarin, announced during the celebration of the Senate President’s victory at the Appeal Court, that Senate committees will be reconstituted. His declaration, then, was seen by loyalists of the Senate President as politically incorrect, but it heightened the pace of lobbying and consultations among some senators who are desirous of bettering their lots as far as committee placements are concerned.

In the unfolding campaign, the senators can be categorised into three groups: There is a group of senators who voted for the Senate President, Senator David Mark on June 5, 2007. Members of this class believe that they have a stake in the Mark Senate presidency and that the Senate President has a duty to protect them. There is the class of those who did not originally vote for the Senate President but have already defected to his side and there is the third leg, a rising mafia which is proving to be all conquering.

The said mafia is made up of a few powerful senators who have a say in the principal officers meeting. That group is said to have largely taken over the duties of the Senate Services Committee and largely executes the powers of the Senate presidency, particularly on issues Senator David Mark feel lackadaisical about.

In the prelude to the composition of the Senate Committees in 2007, a source said that the Senate President handed over the legwork of the committee composition to the principal officers. But unknown to him, his colleagues have yielded to the dictates of a mafia which recommended most principal officers into committees that were regarded as juicy.

It was gathered that when the officers presented their finished work to the Senate President, he insisted that principal officers cannot, at the same time, be vice chairman of grade ‘A’ committees and that he was not ready to present such a composition if corrections were not made. When the committee of principal officers vacillated, Mark was said to have taken his pen and effect the necessary changes. His thinking was that principal officers are seen as privileged members of the chamber and it would not speak well if they at the same time serve as vice chairmen of grade “A’ Committees. Mark only presented the committees to his colleagues when he was sure that necessary corrections had been made.

This time, the growing mafia is said to be at it again. Shortly after the announcement by the Senate leader that committees would be reconstituted, it was gathered that the influential senators had again composed a list of who they want to be in which committee and they were hopeful of getting that through.

While Mark’s election travails up till July may have taken his time and made him to adopt a sort of lukewarm attitude to power in the Senate, the development has also strengthened the hands of the emerging mafia.

A number of committees have therefore been targeted, where some loyalists of the mafia members must be planted, and this is being executed with the desired decoy. It is not clear whether Mark is in the know of the strategies of the forces, but the man’s style has been a source of concern to the mafia members. Mark is said to be a strong-willed man, who holds on tight to his views. Once he is convinced that something is right, he sticks with that and it is quite difficult to change his mind.That posture has been the stumbling block towards enabling the emerging Senate mafia has its way on all fronts.

In July, the Vice Chairman of Senate Committee on Education, Senator Adamu Aliero, had visited the Senate President and told him that the Northern Senators’ Forum (NSF) had met and decided that the chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Iyiola Omisore, must be removed. He said the group believed that the committee was responsible for the travails of the 2008 budget. But the Senate President was said to have replied him, saying that the decision to pick chairman for the various committees was not taken by the regional groupings and it would not augur well for any chairman to be removed on that note.

He was said to have asked Aliero if he would take kindly to it when the Southern senators equally demand that he be removed as Vice Chairman of the Education Committee. The thinking in the Aliero camp then, according to sources, is that Mark would agree to the removal of Omisore, thereby open his leadership to endless bickering from other aggrieved senators.

It was gathered that while the Aliero camp wanted Omisore replaced, there was no agreement in that camp as to who should replace him. Some members of the group wanted Senator Ahmed Makarfi, the incumbent chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, while others preferred Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw, who was said to have been interested in the seat since June 2007.

He was said to have nursed the ambition of winning that slot at the inception of the current Senate and was miffed that the position was zoned to the South-West afterwards.

As a way of starving off agitations, Mark was said to have asked Senator Omisore to talk to his colleagues at a closed session in July. The grouse of many of the senators who spoke at the session included the allegation that the Senator hardly picks their calls, and that he does not allow them to influence certain areas of the budget.

Omisore was said to have apologised to his colleagues who felt that he ignored their calls but he was said to have made it clear that the problems of the 2008 budget cannot be laid at the doorsteps of his committee. He said that all senators were witnesses to the delays in supplying the necessary details as regards the revenue profile by the parastatals and government agencies, adding that in a situation where the senators were at a loss as to the actual revenue profile of the nation, they cannot proceed on the budget.

But the senator said in an interview that the Implementation Committee only comprises seven members, including the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate and House Committees and three members of the National Assembly management.

The campaign against Omisore has been elevated as the fulcrum of the whole committee recomposition matter. In recent times, some vocal senators, including Senator Uche Chukwumerije, have been recruited to the anti-Omisore camp and it was gathered that several means have been devised to convince the Senate President to back out his support for the Osun State senator.

Looking at the travails of the 2008 budget, it will truly not be fair to blame Omisore for the troubles. The Presidency picked up quarrel with the National Assembly over its decision to include new projects, an issue in which they threaten to take to the Supreme Court for interpretation. The Presidency, which also promised to send in amendments to the budget after the president grudgingly assented to the bill, did not do so until the lawmakers were ready to proceed on their annual recess.

A source said that outside politics, the senators know where the truth lies on the 2008 budget and that the Senate itself had placed the blame for the budget impasse on some ministers who they claimed misled the president. At a stage, the Senate threatened to cut the budget of the Ministry of National Planning by as much as 6,000 per cent as a result of uncomplimentary remarks credited to the minister, Senator Sanusi Daggash.

Sources in the upper chamber told the Nigerian Tribune that while some committees will be touched, there will be the introduction of three new committees through splitting of some existing committees.

While a good number of senators believe that it is desirable to move some people around, the campaign against Appropriation Committee has been carried to unbelievable heights.

One of those involved in the campaign against Omisore had said that the senator cannot be accused of incompetence but that he needs to work on his relationship with his colleagues.

A member of the Selection Committee, who is opposed to Omisore, was said to have confessed that he would favour a senator that can be controlled in that position. The senator once mooted the idea that if such a person cannot be found in the South-West, the position can be re-zoned.

That suggestion is said to be causing some ripples already but the senators seeking the chairmanship of that committee, especially those from outside the South-West, are not keeping their ambitions in check.