Buhari’s Impeachment: Opposition Reps Adopt Senate Position

The leadership of opposition political parties in the Senate and House of Representatives have unanimously vowed to activate relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) on the impeachment process of President Muhammadu Buhari over the  insecurity challenges bedevilling the country.

The Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, Hon Ndudi Elumelu, who spoke on behalf of the joint caucuses after the joint closed-door meeting held at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja, expressed solidarity with the Senate Minority Caucus who staged a walkout over the state of the nation during Wednesday plenary.

“The nation has been awash with what happened yesterday in the Senate where our colleagues had to walk out in protest as to the state of the nation as regards to the issue of insecurity in the nation. Concurrently, even though we did not do it exactly the way they did it, we also drew the House attention to what is happening in Nigeria, most importantly in FCT. In FCT, just a few weeks back, Kuje Prison was invaded. A few days back, at the law school on Bwari road, some very, very important Nigerians who in their youth in the armed forces were butchered by the insurgents.

“As if that was not enough, the minister of education gave an instruction that all our children should leave, vacate their various schools. Yesterday, the FCT minister directed that all private schools should be closed. And I gave a warning on the floor of the House, advising my colleagues that Abuja is no longer safe and that is the truth.

“If Abuja is safe, why should the Minister of Education under the APC-led government instruct that every child in every college or school should vacate and parents should come and collect their children. Why should the FCT minister himself direct that private schools should close?
“This in effect gives a signal that Abuja is not safe. And of course, we critically looked at the reason our colleagues are calling for an impeachment notice to be put forward to Mr President for his APC-led government’s inability to protect lives and property; our founding Fathers created this nation for the purpose of ensuring that nobody will suffer in this country.

“But today that is not the story. The story is a story of people being afraid to go out to even do their legitimate businesses. Today, it is difficult to even fly. No aviation fuel. The aviation fuel is no longer available and yet you cannot also ply the roads because the kidnappers, bandits are on the roads. It is very, very difficult.

And let me make it clear. Those who are thinking that it is only the issue of PDP or the minority caucus, no. Many of our colleagues under bipartisanship are affected. Many of them are affected. So, they may not be speaking but we may be speaking for them. And when the time comes. I heard somebody this morning saying it is a laughable attempt to want to do that. Perhaps, when the action starts, the person will find out that it’s not a laughable action. It’s real and we will not stand to allow this nation to collapse.

“We think that it is high time, the insecurity of this nation is addressed. And of course, we also have the issue of oil theft which has risen, now making it difficult for us to earn income from oil revenue. And these and many others are the reasons we are joining our colleagues in the Senate to ask Mr President to address the insecurity of this nation within 6 and 8 weeks. Otherwise, we will find the constitutional means to ensure that we serve him an impeachment notice.

“Again, it’s now N710 to a dollar as at yesterday and if we are not careful, if may rise to N1,000 and beyond. And of course, we have made every effort annually to make budgetary provisions for the security agencies to be able to address some of these issues. Through the supplementary budget, we have done that. Through all special interventions, we have always obliged them.

“So, I think that they owe it as a duty to Nigerians to explain to Nigerians what is going on and why some of these things are happening. And today, our reserve is almost gone. We do not have any reserves anymore. The reserve is gone and these were the things that took the PDP-led government time to build.

“Today, they tell you that the second Niger bridge is being built, that is not true. It’s under a sovereign wealth fund. It is not being funded by appropriations. And that was kick-started by PDP in PDP led government. I just felt that I should put this forward for the Nigerian people and the world to know what is going on,” Hon Elumelu said.

Resolute to the agenda

On his part, Senator Phillip Adudua (PDP-FCT) who led the protest during the Wednesday plenary, affirmed that the Senate and House of Representatives caucuses are resolute to pursue the initiative in the interest of the citizens.

“Indeed, all of you are aware of what happened yesterday and we felt that there was a need to be on the same page with the members of the House of Representatives.

Our actions yesterday were spontaneous from the issues that were raised on the floor of the Senate. I am sure that members of the Press must have interacted with our various colleagues to know that this issue is not just about the PDP caucus but it is a bipartisan issue.

“We all agreed that the security architecture is failing and there is a need to salvage it immediately and we also agreed that we must issue; for some who do not know, an impeachment notice to the President because the primary responsibility of the government is the protection of lives of the citizens.

“Once that is not done, then, there is a problem. And so, the issues were discussed in the closed session including the other members of other parties put together and we all agreed that this was bipartisan.

“We have not called the caucus in the House of Representatives so that we can discuss with them so that they can hear from us and understand what we did yesterday,” Aduda stressed.

Emmanuel Ukoh