By Dan Amor
Rather than being an outing in the familiar mode of commemorative publications, complete with its eulogies, accolades and nostalgic effusions, “David Mark: Mastering The Senate Presidency”, a 500 page book, beautifully written and expertly packaged by Dr. Onjefu Okidu, a lecturer in Mass Communication, is a profound and ramifying intervention in the remarkable and inimitable strides of Distinguished Senator David Mark as President of the Sixth and Seventh Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Segmented into twenty-eight (28) chapters, this is the first major extensive outing on any of the politicians who have led the Nigerian Senate since the evolution of the Fourth Republic in 1999.
The book provides an intriguing balance to the dark and murky depths of the National Assembly leadership of the 1999-2005 period before the emergence of Senator Ken Nnamani as Senate President. With a sharp-shooting narrative, the author keeps to the surface with a sure sense of comic timing, weaving intricate and amusing plots that provide opportunity for witty commentary on a marvelous variety of human foibles and conceits.
Published in 2015 by TIGRAPH Prints and Publishing, Kaduna, Nigeria, “David Mark: Mastering The Senate Presidency “, is a bittersweet story, set in an amorphous context, related in a prose that is strikingly unpretentious. Bitter in its lamentation of tottering leadership of the Upper Chamber leading to its endemic instability during the Obasanjo Presidency and sweet in the overwhelming stability the Red Chamber is manifesting since the Yar’Adua/Jonathan Presidency. It is one of the best Nigerian political narratives of this generation. Technical and aesthetic accomplishments coincide exactly with its thematic content: what is said and how it is said are inseparable.
As a professional communicator, everything the author has said has helped to consolidate his achievements. Indeed, the separate pieces of the twenty-eight chapter book are stitched together with recurring motifs and with the tantalizingly gradual revelation of details that coalesce in the reader’s mind.
“Mastering The Senate Presidency “, portrays Senator David Mark, the President of Nigeria’s 6th and 7th Senate and Chairman of the National Assembly as a statesman and the repository of the workings of the legislature in which he has been a leading player since 1999 when he was first elected to represent the people of Benue-South Senatorial District on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). A charismatic leader of men variously described as a brilliant mind and an astute politician, Mark was trained in various academic institutions at home and abroad including the National Defense University, Washington DC, and Harvard University, Harvard, Boston USA. What many may not know about this accomplished political denizen is that he is a consummate team player. This may have been responsible for his unfettered rise in Nigeria’s political firmament.
He had also played several roles in the current political dispensation which have prepared him for the unprecedented achievements he has recorded as the doyen of the Nigerian legislative leadership. As President of the Nigerian Senate, he is also Chairman, Senate Committee on Selection and Chairman of the National Assembly. Before his dramatic emergence as Senate President the Senate in particular and the National Assembly at large, had been hobbled by a plethora of bickering and confrontation between an overbearing Executive and an inexperienced Legislature.
No doubt, this unhealthy development adversely affected the performance of the National Assembly. Eight years down the road, the astute and pragmatic leadership of Senator Mark has infused the Legislature with some sweet-smelling flavour and has thus insulated the hallowed Chambers from needless controversies between the Legislature and the Executive and also helped in dousing tension and internal wrangling amongst members.
Without going into a tree-by-branch account or chapter-by- chapter analysis of Mark’s startling achievements as Senate President as captured in the book, it is important to stress that the book lays bare his leadership qualities beginning from his mature handling of the crisis that arose as a result of the health challenges of former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua leading up to his untimely death. In fact, the negative perception of non-performance of the National Assembly has changed markedly due to the enviable leadership provided by Senator Mark. Indeed, the new and exciting leadership direction, enduring stability and impressive performance level of the present Senate stems in part from the maturity, high sense of responsibility and gravitas demonstrated by Senator Mark, the absence of executive meddlesomeness and a better understanding and appreciation of the demands of the Legislature in a Presidential democracy by members.
The book has shown why it is now possible for the younger generation of Nigerians to rank Senator David Mark very high among his peers; why the enormous passionate veneration of Senator Mark and his tenure as President of the Nigerian 6th and 7th Senate.
Mark has made it possible for them once again to believe in politics and democratic ideals and a better Nigeria. The integrity of the political system embodied in the Constitution, respect for the rule of law, belief in the supremacy of a law higher than the wishes of a transient majority: all these are estimable grounds on which to base one’s actions, grounds on which many Nigerians may comfortably stand. Isn’t it an irony therefore that someone with military background could be so level-headed as to entrench or deepen our democracy with such finesse and comportment?
The book asserts that David Mark’s leadership of the Senate is not only pragmatic but also visionary. To strengthen legislative capacity, Mark initiated series of institutional and technical innovations to enhance the capacity of the Senate to meet the challenges of the legislature in the 21st Century. This has resulted in the acceleration and passage of key legislations to enhance ongoing economic reforms. Under his leadership, there has been strategic institutional intervention through robust application of oversight functions, to ensure accountability and probity in concert with international best practices. There has been increased sector-wide probes, to ensure greater acccountability and transparency even as more and more agencies of government, ministries and parastatals have come under intense Senate scrutiny.
“David Mark: Mastering The Senate Presidency”, is an accomplished and mature work. The narrative is told from the perspective of a well-grounded academic with a PhD in Mass Communication, who has several years of solid journalistic experience behind him. The book is a potboiler of high order, intended to sustain the reader’s interest, remain true to the historical evidence and deliver a message, all at the same time. The plot is structured according to the complex rules of journalistic reporting and informed commentary. Yet there is a vast aura of authenticity about Dr. Onjefu Okidu’s analysis, the result of his intensive research into the historical setting.
While the book shows considerable political insight and compassion, it offers little insight into the characters themselves, except the subject, David Mark. This is, indeed, appropriate to the genre, but at times the reader craves subtlety and an occasional touch of elegant simplicity amid the dark, exotic shadows of the “ancien regime”. Go for it. Grab it. Savour it. And keep it in your family library for generations yet unborn.
Amor is an Abuja-based critic and journalist.
Phone: +2348063246289
E-mail: danamor98@gmail.com
