NASS adjourns for full time politicking

NASS ADJOURNS FOR FULL TIME
POLITICKING
Traditionally, the last year of the four year
term of the National Assembly is normally
uneventful in terms of lawmaking, but full of
cut throat politics.
This year the cut throat politicking is even
expected to be more sharp given the increased
competition among the political class ahead
of the 2015 election.
So when the two houses of the National
Assembly proceeded on recess last Thursday
it was a signpost for the increased
competitive politics that is about to start
unfolding. When the two houses resume on
September 15, definitive political positions
would have been taken and those who expect
any thing meaningful would be seriously
disappointed.
Members who had in the past trudged
independent paths would in the coming days
think twice as they seek to ingratiate
themselves to the party as they seek re-
election or other elective positions in the
polity.
Indeed, a day before the recess, three All
Progressives Congress, APC House members
decamped to the Peoples Democratic Party,
PDP.
Whither Speaker Tambuwal?
Eyes would especially be on Speaker Aminu
Waziri Tambuwal who was elected on the
platform of the ruling PDP. However, as
everyone knows his election was despite the
desire of the PDP leadership but done with the
active connivance of the APC leadership.
Unsurprisingly, since his election as speaker,
Tambuwal has trudged an independent path to
the admiration of many critics of the
administration avoiding clearly partisan
positions he believes not to be to the interest
of the masses.
Though Speaker Tambuwal officially remains a
member of the PDP, no one is in any doubt
that he is almost a stranger in the party as
nine of the eleven members from his Sokoto
State elected to the House on the platform of
the PDP have defected to the APC.
Tambuwal is at the moment at the centre of
much political permutations given diverse
speculations on his next political aspiration.
Some are demanding he enters the
governorship race in Sokoto, some want him
to return to the House, others say he should
go to the Senate and many more are dreaming
of a Tambuwal – Adams Oshiomhole
presidential ticket.
Delta PDP vs Mrs. Ali.
Pity the lot of Dr. (Mrs.) Marian Ali, wife of
former national chairman of the Peoples
Democratic Party, PDP, Col. Ahmadu Ali. After
surviving what she claimed to be a savage
attack by thugs of her one time political soul
mate, Chief Peter Nwaoboshi, the chairman of
the Delta State chapter of the party, she is now
the subject of a petition by the state chapter.
Apparently muzzling his influence in the state
chapter, Nwaoboshi has been able to lodge a
petition with the national secretariat of the
party against what he and his executive
members describe as the “open and vexatious
physical assault” on Nwaoboshi penultimate
Friday.
According to the petition, Mrs. Ali bundled
herself into a party function she was not
invited to, and took the seat reserved for the
deputy governor. When asked to vacate the
seat, she allegedly attacked Nwaoboshi, the
petition alleged.
In the petition signed by Nwaoboshi and 13
executive members of the state chapter of the
party, Mrs. Ali should be sanctioned for her
alleged unruliness. For Nwaoboshi who has
Mrs. Ali as a serious contender for the PDP
North Senate ticket, ineligibility to contest the
primary would be quite reasonable.