Understanding The Jinx Surrounding David Mark’s Seat

Taiwo Adisa, Abuja

MarkSince the dawn of democratic rule in 1999, the seat of the Senate President, whose occupant is re garded as the nation’s number three citizen, has been dogged by a sort of jinx. If we call this the three Cs, then we have Conspiracy, Controversy and Craft. The first Senate President of this dispensation, Senator Evan Enwerem landed on the seat on the altar of conspiracy within the ranks of the power brokers. While many had given in to the reality of a Chuba Okadigbo Senate Presidency in 1999, Enwerem emerged from the blues and was projected by the forces of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

He emerged the Senate President and lost it six months after on the altar of controversy about his past that was raked up by the media. When the late Senator Okadigbo came in as Senate President, he was the popular choice but he lost it on the basis of conspiracy within his own kitchen cabinet. He agreed to step down for a probe into the contract scam of that era on the advice of his perceived staunch supporters and the table was turned soon afterwards. Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim who took over from Okadigbo learnt the ropes and retained the seat till the end of the first term of the Obasanjo administration in 2003 through craft.

The tenure of Senate President Adolphus Wabara, who was in office between June 2003 and April 2005 would be seen as the one that initiated what is today being entrenched as the jinx around the office of the Senate President. Wabara’s emergence was similar to that of the incumbent Senate President, Senator David Mark, their travails in the bid to consolidate have also been similar. Local politics played on the altar of conspiracy is the pivot of the jinx around the two Senate Presidents and it is a defining issue right now.Last week, the President of the Senate, David Mark, was reported to have made a trip to the home of his erstwhile godfather and former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. That trip was also reported to have been undertaken in what is becoming a David Mark fashion - piloting himself and allowing the official pilot to sit by him and watch.

Many were quick to relate the trip to the on-going battle for the Benue South Senatorial seat. Usually, a number of issues surround any meeting between Senator Mark and Gen Babangida, the Minna General, being the political godfather of Mark and his colleagues, eggheads then in the military. Mark’s class was reputed for its effrontery and was said to have been rewarded by IBB when in 1985, he shoved aside Gen. Mohammadu Buhari in a palace coup. While Mark will not openly show the disposition, it is clear that the suit challenging his election at the Benue State Elections Petition Tribunal by the candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), Alhaji Usman Abubakar (a.k.a Young Alhaji), amounts to a major distraction. Many of his colleagues who appreciate his leadership qualities have expressed the sentiment that the suit be done with.

The Senate President was to acknowledge that during the thanksgiving service on the occasion of his 60th birthday, when he said that his faith had been more than challenged by the suit, but declared his readiness to allow God’s will in his life. Whatever the import of Mark’s visit to IBB was, it would no doubt raise issues as to the jinx that has continued to entrench itself around the seat of the Senate President.

Since the seat of the Chairman of National Assembly is a hot one, it does not come as a surprise that equally hot contests usher in the occupants to the seat and even after the occupation of that seat, the controversies (couched as “banana peel” by Okadigbo) hardly get blown away. The case of the late Senator Evan Enwerem was instructive. While the man was not in the reckoning for the seat in 1999, forces of the Presidency foisted him on the legislature ahead of the late Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. Enwerem landed on the seat through a controversy when forces loyal to former President Obasanjo outwitted that of his deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who was supporting Okadigbo. But media publications on the discrepancies about his name, age and other dealings, left him in the cold and the Senators had to remove him.

Okadigbo got in as a popular choice in November 1999. He too, however, landed on the side of controversy as division over award of contracts and anticipatory approval for such contracts were items latched onto by his adversaries to remove him in August 2000. Anyim employed craft and saw himself completing the tenure in 2003. Even for him, it wasn’t an easy task. He had to come onto the seat on the ticket of Obasanjo’s camp and later turned around to fight the presidency, while bonding with the majority of the Senators. Anyim’s style was largely adopted by Senator Ken Nnamani who was there between 2005 and 2007; craft was his watchword. Between Wabara and David Mark, the face of the jinx has come out clear. The idea is to knock out perceived anointed candidates for the seat as early as possible, with forces on both sides resisting, the electorate only plays the final part of the drama. In the case of Wabara, it was agreed by the hierarchy in the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that the man was preferred for the seat after Anyim. And the political rivalry between Wabara and the then Abia State governor, Chief Orji Kalu, orchestrated the jinx. A similar scenario is playing out in Benue South presently.

David Mark was seen as a preferred candidate for the seat by the leaders of the PDP far ahead of the 2007 elections, but the political rivalry between the Senator and the then governor of Benue State, now Senator George Akume, would make things difficult for the man to emerge. Thus, Governor Akume’s camp had to dress up Usman in ANPP robe to defeat the PDP dream. It was a keenly contested battle that is still raging. Following the adoption of Senator Wabara as the preferred choice for the nation’s number three seat in 2002, his travails commenced as the then governor Kalu organised a primary election which Wabara was said to have lost. The PDP in Abia was then divided into the Abuja and home-based factions.

While many bigwigs in the party were supporting Obasanjo, Kalu was opposed to the President and the party in Abia State split along that line. When Kalu’s men organised their primaries to defeat Wabara, the other faction of the party led by Chief Tony Ukasanya returned the Senator as the candidate for Abia South Senatorial seat. The PDP at the national level adopted Wabara to set the stage for the eventual electoral contest of April 2003. Kalu was to adopt the candidate of ANPP, Elder Imo, to teach Wabara and PDP a lesson. The controversy thrown up by that battle got to the elections petition tribunal as Wabara was said to have failed in the substantive election, while the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) also got entangled in the fray, by first issuing a certificate wrongly to Imo before realising the error and awarding Wabara the true certificate of victory.

While the courts were racking their heads on the way the ruling would go in 2003, Wabara’s kinsmen called Imo and the ANPP together and asked that honour be given to the seat of Senate President, which has been given to Wabara. The opposition agreed to withdraw the suit and allow the man who got in there on the ticket of the PDP to serve the tenure. It is instructive that Kalu, late in 2004, appeared in Wabara’s Ohambele, Abia home, to apologise for the ills he had done him in the past. Right now, the people of Benue South are caught between two worlds. Benue State Governor, Hon. Gabriel Suswam, who was upbeat on the possibility of withdrawing the suit against Mark at the commencement of the Senate Presidency, appeared worn-out in a media interview last week. where he indicated that external forces might have hijacked the peace process.

In the eyes of many Senators, Mark has done well, some have even said that he is one President they would want to have for the duration of their tenure, but then, the jinx around the seat he occupies has combined with legality to place his heart in his mouth.