TheCable

Since Senate President Bukola Saraki left the All Progressives Congress (APC), the ruling party has been calling for his resignation, arguing that he cannot lead the senate while in the minority.

The ruling party has more senators than Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where Saraki has pitched his tent.

On Wednesday, Adams Oshiomhole, APC national chairman, asked the senate president to, as “a matter of honour, leave the crown (senate presidency) in the house that the crown belongs to”.

Lawmakers in the ruling party have also argued along the same line.

But — you won’t believe this — the same APC kicked against calls for Aminu Tambuwal to be removed when he left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as speaker of house of representatives in 2014.

Then majority, the PDP and its lawmakers, had presented the same argument the APC is waving at the moment: That the leader of the legislative chamber cannot come from the minority.

Lai Mohammed, then spokesman of the APC, defended Tambuwal’s defection as being about the “fortunes of democracy” and not about the party.

According to him, “it is not about the fortunes of the party it is about the fortunes of the country. Now we are going to have more qualitative laws, and this is a man who enjoys support across board so we have a speaker who is accepted on the right and the left.”

Lai also went down memory lane to buttress his stance, citing the case of Ikem Ume-Ezeoke who did not step down as speaker, when he ended up in the minority party.

“Those who are saying that the speaker should resign have forgotten history. In 1982 when the NPN and NPP accord broke down, Ume-Ezeoke did not step down as the speaker neither did Wash Pam step down as the deputy president of the senate,” he had said.

It is only four years down the line but the party is contradicting itself. A typical case of dancing to the tune that best suits you?