If you don’t like the manner that Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki emerged Nigeria’s Senate President, remember British Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill’s aphorism that democracy is the worst form of government, except for the others– monarchy, oligarchy, totalitarianism, dictatorship, and outright anarchy.

With sheer cunning Omo Baba Oloye clinched the oyster that eluded his father, Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki, the late Kwara State political potentate and Second Republic Senate Majority Leader. After mouthing disapproval of zoning, and announcing that the National Assembly members-elect could choose their leaders, the All Progressives Congress chiefs proceeded to supervise mock elections for the National Assembly leadership.

To ram down the throat of the elected legislators the decision to elect Ahmed Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives respectively, the leaders contrived a meeting for President Muhammadu Buhari to cajole the Assemblymen to toe party line. The APC gave a goat, but held the tether.

Presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina, denied that President Buhari wanted a meeting, and exposed the APC National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun’s doublespeak: “I want to make it quite clear that all the party did was to provide the platform for all elected members of the party. No other person joined them in stating their preferences. It is left to the lawmakers to elect their own leaders, and the National Assembly is made up of both the APC and the PDP members.”

Observers insist that the APC Senate President and his PDP Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, were elected essentially by the PDP. While a majority of the APC senators waited on a President who didn’t show up, the 49 PDP senators simply overwhelmed the eight APC senators present to elect Saraki. The PDP senators, again steamrolled the APC senators, whose number had increased to 27, to elect Ekweremadu the Deputy Senate President.

Section 50(1)(a)of the 1999 Constitution says: “There shall be a President and a Deputy President of the Senate, who shall be elected by the members… from among themselves.” Section 50(1)(b) prescribes the same provision for the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Because the constitution did not categorically state that a majority political party must always provide the leadership of the National Assembly, perhaps the best anyone can do now is to wish Lawan, the APC’s Senate President that never was, “Better luck next time.”

Many however wonder why President Buhari chose to send a letter authorising the Clerk to inaugurate the Eighth National Assembly on his behalf. They can’t understand why he didn’t deem it necessary to personally carry out such a highly important constitutional assignment.

But then, Section 64(3) of the constitution merely says”… the… President shall have power to issue a proclamation for the holding of the first session of the National Assembly… or for its dissolution…” Though the constitution is silent on the manner that the President chooses to inaugurate the National Assembly, he should have done the honours himself.

Some APC senators wonder why the Clerk of the National Assembly, Salisu Maikasuwa, hurried to inaugurate the National Assembly when only 57 of the 109 senators were present at the 10am appointed time. They should also ask if anyone informed Maikasuwa that the President would meet with the APC senators elsewhere, when everyone, including the President, should have been at the National Assembly complex.

Maikasuwa evidently stood on the authority of Section 54(1) of the Constitution which says: “The quorum of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall be one-third (roughly 36 senators and 120 members of the House of Representatives respectively) of all the members of the legislative house concerned.”

Section 56(2) pointedly adds: “Except as otherwise provided by the constitution, the required majority for the purpose of determining any question (including election of principal officers) shall be by a simple majority.”If this provision deems a simple majority of a quorum of 36 senators as acceptable, those seeking to invalidate Ekweremadu’s election with 54 votes may lack constitutional locus standi.

They may then have to accept President Buhari and his law professor Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo’s position “that a constitutional process (some say a force majeure) has somewhat occurred,” although they would have preferred the new leaders to emerge through the process established by the APC.

The President admonished the elected lawmakers to concentrate on the enormous task of delivering enduring positive change to Nigerians, and reiterated willingness to work with whoever the lawmakers elected as their leaders. This is another way of asking the APC party leaders to sheathe their swords.

Sticklers for time wonder if the absentee senators were time conscious. They ask if those who convened the botched parley between the President and the APC lawmakers for 9am at one end of town, truly expected them to attend the inauguration at 10am prompt at the other end of town-considering that protocol requires that they be seated in the chambers ahead of the President.

The APC, flushed with the euphoria of becoming the ruling party, suffered a brief bout of amnesia, forgot (so soon) that its members in the Seventh House of Representatives had to scale the fence of the National Assembly complex to thwart a PDP attempt to impeach erstwhile Speaker Aminu Tambuwal. Some think that the meeting with Mr. President was an “arodan” decoy sold to distract those opposed to Saraki’s ambition.

The PDP was more serious about the business of the day; it exploited the negligence of the APC, and the loophole in the constitution, and it paid off. By 1.50pm of the fateful day, its National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, issued a statement directing its elected members to vote Saraki as the Senate President and Yakubu Dogara as the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The PDP appears to have rallied back to vigorously contest the political space with the APC, and this makes for robust democracy. You may not approve of Saraki’s methods, but you must recognise that the PDP opposition is going to give the APC a run for its money. The APC had better sit tight, and work its rump or lose its shirt.

The undercurrent of grumblings was apparently more potent than the APC party leaders realised. Word doing the rounds on the streets is that the mock elections were not fair to the “New PDP”, one of the APC’s four and half legacy political parties: the Congress for Progressive Change had produced President Buhari; the Action Congress of Nigeria produced Vice-President Osinbajo and was also to produce Gbajabiamila as the Speaker of the House.

The All Nigeria Peoples Party was to produce Ahmed Lawan as the Senate President, and it appeared that the “New PDP” was to hold the can, doomed to produce none of the first four citizens of the polity. So, they connived with their erstwhile PDP comrades to snatch the Senate Presidency and House Speakership. The APC must now sort the ANPP and half-child All Progressive Grand Alliance-and the South-South as it were.

It’s good that the APC leaders finally accepted Saraki as the Senate President. A PDP Deputy Senate President in an APC-controlled Senate appears incongruous, but it should make for an all-inclusive Senate that will expeditiously pass bills from the Executive arm. It may however become an unholy alliance for sharing the spoils of office, instead of headhunting competent hands for the purpose of good governance.