The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has reportedly been rallying members-elect of the Senate and House of Representatives from his party to ensure they close ranks and appropriate the principal offices to the virtual exclusion of other parties.

Oshiomhole’s stance is understandable. As the head of the party which has just emerged ahead of the pack after a most gruelling general election, he would want to strengthen the hold of his party on the polity and the Legislative arm in particular, bearing in mind how rebellious elements combined efforts with the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to seize both chambers in June 2015, and later decamped to the opposition party. The APC leadership would want to learn from its experiences and make efforts to prevent a recurrence as we prepare to inaugurate the Ninth National Assembly.

We need to point out, however, that the National Assembly is not a party affair. Political parties are merely vehicles that the Constitution mandates candidates to adopt in order to contest for elective positions. Once they are inaugurated the members automatically become representatives of their states (as in the Senate) and of their various constituencies (House of Representatives). Also, the individual interests of the members come into play. Party consideration comes last. Party interest is accommodated when the first two needs are already accommodated.

The National Assembly has strictly followed this objective reality since the birth of the Fourth Republic in 1999. Members of ruling parties which invariably command huge majorities in both chambers have often risen above the interests and demands of party leaders to vote in the national interest at crunch moments. We saw this when the Senate defeated former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s effort to secure a tenure elongation for himself during the aborted Constitution amendment in May 2006. So many other examples abound.

This was the spirit that drove the emergence of Waziri Tambuwal as the Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2011 when the PDP had wanted to install Mulikat Akande from the South West in line with its zoning and power sharing formula. That also came into play in 2015 when Dr. Bukola Saraki and Yakubu Dogara took over the leadership of the Senate and House of Representatives, respectively, in spite of APC leaders’ wishes.

Even if Oshiomhole succeeds in installing his preferred party members, we are confident that the Senate and HOR members will maintain the independence that is now a part of Federal parliament’s cherished culture, rather than regress to a rubber-stamp of the Executive arm.

In the Ninth National Assembly, Nigeria must come first before all else! The Legislature, while maintaining its relative independence, must also work harmoniously with the Executive for smooth governance.