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.