Many have argued that there is no morality in politics; not only in our clime but also in other politically sophisticated climes like the West. Those who argue along this line would always be quick to refer to the saying that “the end justifies the means.” In other words, they consider politics to be a do or die affair where, according to Shakespeare in one of his all-time intriguing books, Macbeth, said “Fair is foul and foul is fair.” To a typical politician and their likes, power is the ultimate end of politics, not necessarily to serve humanity but to serve self at the expense of the people even if it means crushing one’s enemies to attain such power. Some call it being pragmatic, while others say it is primarily a matter of self-interest, after which all other things may align.
While a majority of politicians all over the world think in line of the above, only very rare number of them with the conscience to do good by all irrespective of ethnic, religious or even party differences, still abound.
One of such leaders is the President of the 10th Senate, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, GCON. And one political leader who recently testified to this fact is no other than a former Senate President himself, Senator Olubukola Saraki.
Saraki had become a pariah of some sort at the National Assembly following his tenure as Senate President during the 2015-2019 tenure of former President Muhammadu Buhari. His emergence did not go down well with the establishment and he was marked for political annihilation. All through his tenure as senate president, Oloye, as he is fondly called, was harassed, humiliated and hounded by the Buhari administration. The full instrumentality of the executive arm of government was brought down heavily upon him. He was dragged through different courts for what is now confirmed to be trumped up charges. The situation was so ridiculous that the administration tried implicating him in a dare-devil robbery incident that happened at Offa, Kwara State. In all of those, Saraki stood firm and refused to budge. He remained unbowed, uncowed and unfazed to the consternation of Buhari and his boys. And after his tenure as Senate president, Ahmad Lawan, the preferred candidate of the establishment, emerged as Senate president in 2019.
Rather than start on a clean slate and move on from all the needless drama and reckless executive interference that characterized the Senate between 2015 and 2019, Lawan’s leadership continued with the same policies of vindictiveness. His leadership ensured the removal of Saraki’s official portrait from the Senate Gallery where portraits of current and former senate presidents hung as both an honour and historical monument. It was such a bizarre action by Lawan’s administration that attempted to, albeit vainly, obliterate an integral part of our political history.
But rising above such petty politics, the current senate president, Godswill Akpabio, even though still of a different party from Saraki’s, immediately ensured the restoration of Oloye’s portrait in the senate gallery. He did not stop at that, as a leader who understands that the onerous task of nation building would be better and easier achieved through dialogue, fairness, equity and justice, Saraki, a PDP chieftain, was appointed to present a paper titled “The National Assembly and Nigeria’s Democracy in the Last 26 Years” to a joint session of the National Assembly headed by Akpabio on the occasion of Nigeria’s celebration of Democracy Day on June 12.
Saraki used the opportunity to thank the leadership of the 10th Senate for restoring his portrait in the gallery. He extolled the virtues of Akpabio as different from that of the immediate past senate leadership: “If it were in another time, they would have been looking at the body language of the president, and my invite would have gotten missing. Just like my portrait,” he said, adding that, “Just as my portrait was missing for four years in the Senate Gallery created for all former presiding officers, it was brought in just recently. I thank my good friend, Senator Godswill Akpabio, for that.”
These gestures by Akpabio are not only uncommon in our clime and time but are also significant given that Saraki is not only a chieftain of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), but that in the heat of the Akpabio-Natasha saga, Saraki took sides with Natasha against Akpabio even before the commencement of judicial processes. These factors did not sway the decision-making process of Akpabio as a leader in restoring Saraki’s privileges as a former senate president, including inviting him as a speaker at the National Assembly’s joint session. He certainly lives above petty political bickering and is fast assuming the position of an icon of politics without bitterness in the country.
Akpabio’s all-embracing leadership style has since become hallmark of the 10th Senate.
Another point worthy of consideration in this opinion is that in February, the Senate President appointed the senator representing Abia Central, Senator Austin Akobundu, as the Acting Chairman of the Senate Committee on Air Force. The committee is one of the senate’s most strategic ones because of the critical role of the Air Force in the fight against insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and other crimes constituting an existential threat to the nation. The appointment of Akobundu by Akpabio was done without recourse to the fact that Akobundu belongs to the opposition PDP. It was an appointment that was done on merit relying on the strength of Akobundu’s experience as a former military officer, to head that committee and treat the budget defence of the Nigerian Air Force with “military precision” as it needed to continue discharging its duties and responsibilities to the nation without any delays from budgetary issues.
Akpabio knew that Akobundu could get the job done with dispatch and decided he was best to act as Chairman of the committee despite party differences. That is putting national interest above personal or party interest.
And that is the hallmark of a statesman!
Jude Ndukwe, Abuja
