By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
The enthronement of a Senate President and a Speaker of the House of Representatives without the input of the president in 2011 meant that the National Assembly and the presidency were bound to work at cross purposes. However, in her two years as the presidential contact person in the National Assembly, Senator Joy Emodi succeeded in weaving an unusual détente. So it was surprising when the woman that won hearts as the Joy of the Senate was unceremoniously removed.
It is one office that has tested the wits of its occupiers since the advent of the Fourth Republic. But none of the two men and two women who have occupied the office of Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters since 1999 brought the kind of dexterity and success that Mrs. Joy Emodi employed in her duties.
In her two years on the job it is on record that no government bill was thrown out by any of the two branches of the National Assembly despite the loud muttering that regularly shadowed the relationships between the two arms of government.
JOY EMORDI
Wali was largely reserved and left his immediate assistants, Alhaji Kashim Imam and Dr. Esther Uduehi, who were respectively presidential liaison officers to the Senate and the House of Representatives, to do the job for him. Both were soon engulfed in the intrigues that regularly shadowed relations between the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo presidency and the National Assembly of that era.
Third term controversy
The House of Representatives under Speaker Ghali Na’aba passed a resolution banning Mrs. Uduehi from entering the vicinity of the National Assembly.
Ita-Giwa who followed in the second term was successful to the extent that when she took over the job in 2003, that Obasanjo had already moulded the National Assembly in his image as the leadership that came in was literally handpicked by him.
However, Ita-Giwa’s tenure was marred by the third term controversy. Alhaji Abba-Aji, who followed, was on his part swallowed up in the intrigues that shadowed the sickness of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
The appointment of Mrs. Emodi following the inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan in May 2011 was seen as a calculated attempt by the new administration to forge a constructive linkage with the National Assembly. It couldn’t have been otherwise.
The administration, nay, the ruling PDP had been dusted in June 2011 when the party’s choice for Speaker of the House of Representatives Mrs. Mulikat Akande was defeated by Barrister Aminu Waziri Tambuwal. The emergence of Tambuwal despite the almost high handed campaign of the party against him at that time easily indicated acrimony ahead in the relationship between the two arms of government.
In the Senate, Senator David Mark also easily returned to office without the support of the presidency. So with the two houses of the National Assembly in the control of self-made men, it was easy to predict that the legislative agenda of the administration would be measured with great scrutiny.
It was against that expectation that Senator Emodi was appointed to help manage the relationship between the two arms as the Special Adviser to the president.
Mrs. Emodi had been highly recommended by her pedigree in the Senate between 2005 and 2010 where she earned the sobriquet, “Joy of the Senate” on account of the grace she brought to her duties and demeanour.
Senator Emodi was nevertheless faced with serious challenges in the performance of her duties especially the seeming reluctance of the president to give heed to resolutions and bills passed by the National Assembly. Their seething anger nonetheless, the members and senators almost always capitulated to the entreaties of Mrs. Emodi.
Her persuasive abilities could not have been further confirmed than by the passage of the 2013 budget of the Federal Government in December, 2012.
It was the first time since the advent of the Fourth Republic that the Federal Government budget was passed before the end of the preceding year.
That legislative feat was despite the complaints by the legislators of the administration’s failure to implement the 2012 budget.
House spokesman, Rep. Zakari Mohammed, who despite his sometimes very caustic tone, described Emodi as a very good politician, who brought a lot of experience to her job.
“She is quite experienced and in the course of my own experience as a legislator she was one person I had a lot of respect for and of course, she would have added much more value to our democracy,” Mohammed told Vanguard over the telephone.
A legislator speaking on the basis of anonymity said: “She treated many of us especially in the House as a mother and for me any time I wanted to raise my voice on issues, the image of her pleas almost always had an effect on me,” one of the most vocal members of the House told Vanguard at the weekend.
It was as such not surprising that at the end of the second legislative year, the House passed a resolution recognising her as “The Joy of the Villa and the Joy of the National Assembly.” Even before going on its last vacation, the House of Representatives adjourned plenary for one day to enable members fully attend an international seminar organised by her office on fostering good relations between the executive and legislative arms.
So, given the positive dimensions to Senator Emodi’s brief many were as such surprised when the presidency announced the termination of her appointment.
The development, according to many sources, was not unconnected with the increasing hold of hardliners over the presidency. Mrs. Emodi ,by many accounts, had faulted the deployment of an alternative structure outside the recognised leadership in the two chambers.
“Emodi’s argument was that it was of no use forming groups to support the president in the two chambers because in her view Mark and Tambuwal were not directly against the president and even at that, it was her argument that any alternative group formed would be ineffectual in pressing through the legislative agenda of the president,” sources disclosed.
The hardliners it was alleged had taken to forming groups purposely to mobilise for the impeachment of Speaker Tambuwal who they believed to be a potential threat to the president’s re-election prospects in 2015. It was in the process of doing that that some of the hardliners reportedly mobilised funds to the tune of $25,000 given to each of the lawmakers supportive of their agenda.
Though many of the legislators took the money, it is instructive that last Wednesday and Thursday that motions and bills supportive of the president were either thrown out or withdrawn at the threshold of defeat, a development that supported Emodi’s argument of the ineffectiveness of their tactics.
Commenting on the developments in an interview with Vanguard, Mrs. Emodi said: “They said I had a shouting match with Diezani and that was not true. I have never fought with her. I have heard all kinds of things since last Friday but you must realise that National Assembly members are my colleagues. I used to be one of them. I was there as a member of the House and a senator. I was relating with them through dialogue and diplomacy. You don’t achieve anything by fighting.”
Her calm nonetheless, the Kawu Baraje led faction of the PDP saw her removal as another faux pas of the Jonathan administration.
“We learnt Senator Joy Emodi was sacked as Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters because of her candid advice that inducing members of the National Assembly financially to impeach their principal officers would be counter-productive. If this is true, we hereby demand her immediate reinstatement.”
“For Senator Emordi to be bold enough to tell Mr. President the implication of such a corrupt inducement of the lawmakers should earn her commendation rather than a sack. Instead of sacking such a forthright and patriotic Amazon, the President should sack those hawks around him planning to ridicule him by encouraging him to embark on acts capable of making him very unpopular among his supporters and followers.”
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