By Kola Animasaun
Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria, has taken quite a lot of our time these few days.  If you ask me, I will say it is good he did.  It was a question of money and of course, integrity.  It was a popular uproar.  Sanusi could not refuse to answer the summons of the sovereign parliament.  He even agreed he could be sacked.

After all the cacophony, Sanusi, will have to reconcile with the Ministry of Finance and the NASS.  We may not know how they will resolve the problem.

The ACN has accused lawmakers of planning to amend the Electoral Act to serve their selfish interest.  Lagos Speaker was more forthcoming.  He said the National Assembly members wanted to become automatic members of the National Executive Committees of their  parties.

As far as Ikuforiji is concerned: “The party is supreme and should not be seen to be relegated to less important position.  That one is elected either as a councillor or National Assembly member does not give one the right to arrogate to oneself the supreme power.  They cannot all be members of NEC of parties.  It is wrong; it is an aberration and Nigerians should resist it.”

Of course, those who sponsor the Electoral Act Amendment Bill, saw it differently.  They say the amendment is aimed at wresting parties from the “dictatorial and tyrannical manner” in which most parties are run.  They think it will create a level-playing field for all political actors.

One of them said that in the Second Republic, members of Parliament were also members of NEC of their parties.  To him, the arrangement enabled Federal lawmakers to articulate their party policies and manifestos in parliament because they were involved at the formulation stage.

However, the governors (the new power brokers) have seen through the legislators’ tactics.  They have used a combination of carrot and sticks.  The legislators mean to cut the governors to size.

For the carrot: Some legislators are offering a ‘return ticket’ to the assembly by governors for the killing of the passage of the Bill.  For the sticks: Some are saying the Bill is anti-democratic.

However, the governors have now threatened even Jonathan: They held a collective meeting and they have condemned the amendment to the Electoral Act 2010 which the House of Representatives have passed.  They said it was “repugnant and self serving.” They dissociated themselves from the action

Chairmen of state chapters of PDP, Governors, Speakers of states’ Houses of Assembly representing their members; chairmen, secretaries, youth and women leaders of states’ chapters of PDP were supposed to gather in Abuja to protest the proposal which will deny them candidate status in the forthcoming national convention of the party.
As proposed by the House of

Representatives, statutory delegates to the national convention of the PDP could be limited to about 500 and the elected 774 elected delegates from the Local Governments in the country.

If Jonathan assented to the Bill, he would be assured of at least two thirds of the statutory delegates from the National Assembly.  He will sink Atiku for the Presidential ticket.  Who would not take advantage of such an opportunity?  Any Jonathan would.

But all the same, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the National Publicity Secretary of ACN, cried out: “…Nigerians can now know what is going on and how their representatives have been deceiving them just to satisfy their own narrow and selfish interests.”

He also called on Jonathan “not to allow himself to be railroaded into signing into Law any constitution amendment that contains this democracy-killing section.”

“As President, he must stay on the side of Nigerians and act only in the interest of the nation’s democracy, not that of an increasingly egocentric and narcissistic lawmakers.”