The fate of Carpet crossing

Commentary

By Atilade Atoyebi


Dino Melaye
Kogi
2Rabiu KwankwasoKano
3Lanre TejuosoOgun
4Shaaba LafiagiKwara
5Rafiu IbrahimKwara
6Barnabas GemadeBenue
7Abdulazeez NyakoAdamawa
8Monsurat SunmonuOyo
9Usman NafadaGombe
10Suleiman HunkuyiKaduna
11Ibrahim DanbabaSokoto
12Ubale ShittuJigawa
13Isah MisauBauchi
14Suleiman Nazif

Bukola Saraki, President of the 8th Senate delayed a bit but later joined those Senators to quit the ruling All Progressives Party, APC. In all 16 of them reappeared as members of the opposition People’s Democratic Party, PDP. This political realignment happened in July 2018, less than one year to the 2019 general elections. Saraki had spearheaded a similar political move in January 2014, again about one year to the 2015 general elections. A group of Senators of the then ruling PDP crossed over to APC. At that time, APC was a new contrivance among members of several political parties struggling to forge an alliance to dethrone Goodluck Jonathan of PDP attempting to serve as President of Nigeria for a second term.

The coalition pulled the rug under PDP’s feet, won the general elections and Muhammadu Buhari candidate of APC was sworn in as President on May 29, 2015. It is recalled that Jonathan called Buhari to congratulate him for his victory in the presidential election even before the last results were announced. The move has won Jonathan a lot of respect at home and abroad.

The plot in 2019 was to defeat Buhari and return a candidate of PDP as President. Some architects of Buhari’s victory in 2015 believed that they could remove him through the ballot box in 2019. It was soon clear that Saraki wanted to be President. However, he could not emerge as PDP’s candidate where another returnee to the Party, Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President of Nigeria for 8 years (1999–2007) was also interested in the race. Atiku beat all comers at the party primary in Port Harcourt and took away the party flag as it’s bearer in last February’s presidential election. Saraki who participated in the primary but lost quickly ran back to Kwara State, his State of origin to fight for his Senatorial seat which he still held at the time.

Unfortunately, he lost in his bid for third term as a Senator for Kwara State. So also fourteen out of the 16 Senators that left APC for PDP. Only one in their group, Dino Melaye appeared to have reclaimed his own seat in Kogi West Senatorial District. But his victory has been short lived. Smart Adeyemi, a two-term PDP Senator whom Melaye defeated in 2015 with APC ticket contested the seat with him in 2019 and Melaye was declared the winner. Adeyemi challenged Melaye’s victory at the election petition tribunal and won with a caveat that the election must be rerun in that senatorial district. Melaye appealed the judgment but the decision of the tribunal was upheld by the Appeal Court.

INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu

The election rerun took place on November 16, the same day that the Kogi and Bayelsa States gubernatorial elections took place. The result favoured Adeyemi a bit. He defeated Melaye by just a little over 20,000 votes that were not enough to declare him outright winner. Why? The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC cancelled the election in 51 polling units on account of election malpractices. The number of votes in contention was over 43,000 which were more than Adeyemi’s margin of victory (20,000) This necessitated a supplementary election in those 51 units where the number of votes at stake was 43,000.

The supplementary election was held yesterday, November 30. Finally, vote tallies now stand like this: Smart Adeyemi (APC) 88,373 votes; Dino Melaye (PDP) 62,233 votes. Adeyemi is now the new Senator for Kogi West and there goes Melaye, the last of the 16 Senators that left ruling APC for opposition PDP before the 2019 general elections. Melaye will contest the result. He didn’t want the election to hold in the first instance. He said that there were anomalies that must be corrected in before the rerun.

What do you call the decision of the 16 APC Senators to gamble with their seats before the last general elections? Political miscalculation or suicide!!

Written by Atilade Atoyebi