The awesome powers of the president in a presidential democracy are rarely disputed. Indeed, even where you have the mildest or humblest of men as president, the overwhelming powers available to the presidency are enough to transform such a person into a power drunk individual.

 Thursday’s message from Chief Olisa Metuh, the once vibrant and vivacious spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP linking his refund of the N400 million allegedly given to him by President Goodluck Jonathan for party activities to his support of the Muhammadu Buhari administration’s anti-war was indeed instructive.

Metuh’s spirit according to sources close to him has not been broken, but a desperate effort by friends and family to secure a soft landing for a man who they claim received funds from an incumbent president for party duties may have inspired his new inclinations. Indeed the apparent cowering of Metuh, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, and the opposition is only reflective of the awesome powers of the presidency.

 However, how healthy the ensuing development is for the country’s democratic ethos is another question. But the presidency has not always outsmarted everyone. A number of people had successfully fought off seeming intimidations by occupiers of the presidency. One of the most successful rebels was Anyim Pius Anyim, who for his first few months as Senate President in 2000 was regarded as a lackey of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The submissiveness of the Anyim Senate was manifested in several instances including claims that Anyim staved off the presentation of the report by the late Senator Idris Abubakar on expenses made on the Abuja National Stadium.

However, Anyim was to subsequently rebel, and rebel in such a way that completely befuddled the Obasanjo camp. It got so bad for the Obasanjo camp that the Senate under him considered impeachment threats against the president. Obasanjo senators including Senator Florence Ita-Giwa in the last days of the Anyim Senate were taunted and told off by their colleagues. Having successfully ridiculed the presidency, Anyim, despite being a member of the ruling PDP refused to decamp, remaining within the party like a bone in the neck who at the same time was clearly sympathetic to the opposition All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP especially in his native Ebonyi State.

The expectation was that Anyim would retire into political destitution. However, on his last day presiding as Senate President in June 2003, he rubbished those after him when he not only resigned from the PDP but said he was stepping down from politics. Speaker Ghali Naaba was another person who brought the presidency to its knees and successfully fought off pressures and punches on him. In fact at the height of the faceoff with Obasanjo, the Naaba House banished Obasanjo’s liaison to the House, Dr. Esther Uduehi from entering the premises of the National Assembly.

Realising that the stick was unhelpful in bringing the Naaba house to its knees, President Obasanjo used the carrot approach when on the occasion of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day in 2002 he publicly fed Speaker Naaba with a piece of cake. Anyim and Naaba were largely successful in their fights against the Obasanjo presidency largely because of the support they had from the chamber they presided over.

 It is against that background that the ensuing faceoff between the Muhammadu Buhari presidency and the Saraki Senate is bound to interest democracy enthusiasts. The arraignment of the presiding officers of the Senate, Senators Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu on the allegation of forging the Senate Standing Order was to some senators a formal declaration of war. Saraki alleged that the presidency had been hijacked from Buhari, while Ekweremadu petitioned the international community on the erosion of democratic liberty and the crippling of the institutions of democratic rule. A senior APC senator was reported to have said that removing Saraki was for now not conceivable. That claim underlines the near unanimity of senators behind him.

If the likes of Metuh, Fani-Kayode, Mrs. Esther Usman, PDP and many others seem to be cowed into submission, the historical fact is that a right thinking legislative house under an upright presiding officer can hardly be browbeaten. So long as Saraki does not dip his hands into the finances of the senators, he stands a good way of making a good fight in the unfolding conflict between the two branches of government.

 However, as in every conflict between two elephants, the grass is bound to suffer. And in this case, the grass would refer to the string of legislative measures and executive actions that are strongly needed at this time to move the country forward.