Fracas in the House

THE NATION Editorial

Once again, the House of Representatives chamber on September 17 became a fisticuff zone when ordinarily honourable members and their august and esteemed guests descended into near-savagery on a matter that could be civilly settled. If this is a window on 2015, then the omens are bad and should be decried.

The Abubakar Baraje faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had gone on a pitching spree to table their case before the House leadership; and probably seek to influence the House to support their cause. News also had it that the Bamanga Tukur faction was planning a similar pitch, which, however, news reported was put off at the last minute.

In presidential democracy, this is called lobbying and it is perfectly legitimate. For starters, the National Assembly is a public institution open to all Nigerians and to every partisan who feels it could help in solving his or her problem. So, if the two PDP factions want to lobby for their respective causes, that is perfectly in order. Besides, fundamental rights of association and of speech are entrenched in the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

So, if these rights are guaranteed both sides, why the disgraceful scuffle, which involved fisticuffs, garment-shredding, bawling like savages and clawing like animals – and all these in a hall inside the House of Representatives, supposed to be the Palladium of civil and parliamentary conduct?

This is because of the penchant for the intolerant which, regretfully, a good number of the extant ruling elite are guilty of. That the Baraje faction, with its seven governors and other supporters eventually met with Speaker Aminu Tambuwal, Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha and other members of the House management just shows the futility of trying to crudely block a right guaranteed in the Constitution.

The other faction too should follow the democratic tradition, if it feels the House of Representatives is key to its cause, and go table its cause too before the House leadership and let its cause rise or fall based on the soundness of its logic and power of its argument.

But to heat up the polity simply because a side is trying to gag the other side does great harm to our evolving democracy. Democracy is all about peacefully settling disputes. If our ruling elite do not cultivate the culture of reasoned debates, but instead latch on to throwing tantrums and physically attacking themselves, just because they don’t have the temper to let their marshalled points speak for them, then we are building a democracy without democrats. That is dangerous.

The PDP must realise it is the ruling party. It must check its conduct, even when in intense crisis, because its conduct or misconduct always reverberates all through the polity. It has no choice but to conduct itself civilly and responsibly.

How the two factions settle their problems is strictly their business. But both factions must know that disputes – and serious ones as the PDP is going through – are not settled by grandstanding in the media, or by spinning “reconciliation” (when there is hardly any), or screaming “no retreat, no surrender” just to gain media attention and heat up the polity.

The split in PDP has resulted from serious questions: fairness, equity, access, equal opportunity, legality and impunity, particularly in the internal running of the party. These are serious challenges that every democratic association must take seriously; they must live by the positive ones and shun the vices.

The PDP should therefore get real and buckle down to settling its problem. If it doesn’t, it should accept the sad reality that it is rather hitting the end of the road. Nothing, we repeat, nothing must harm this democracy.