Over 200 members of the House of Representatives are said to have
signed the impeachment notice.
Fresh
indications emerged Saturday that on-going moves by Senators in the All
progressive Congress (APC) and some of their colleagues in the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) might shelve their proposal to commence
impeachment action against President Goodluck Jonathan this week.
Sunday Independent gathered from one of the aggrieved Senators
spearheading the impeachment moves that there is currently a crack in
the wall of their plot, as other members in the pro-impeachment group
have begun to back out following the intervention of the Senate
President, David Mark.
The lawmaker told Sunday Independent, that
Mark had been “talking to us individually on the need to understand
that an impeachment action against Mr President now, may not be a good
idea”.
He also disclosed that Mark specifically met with the
“ring leaders” of the impeachment last Thursday evening to assure them
that “whatever were our grievances would be looked into and addressed
promptly. Based on the Senate President’s intervention however, the
Senator who is a PDP member stated that “those in their group began to
have a second thought about it (impeachment)”.
The Senator told
Sunday Independent that Mark had equally scheduled a meeting of the
larger group of the Senators whose number, on the last count, had risen
to 66 from both major political parties but predominantly from the APC,
while over 200 members of the House of Representatives are said to have
signed the impeachment notice.
The Senate made up of 109 members has PDP as majority with same in the House of Representatives of 360 members.
Sunday Independent was told that Mark’s intervention late last week
came on the heels of intense pressure personally from the President
Goodluck Jonathan and some of his close aides including some top shots
in the leadership of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who were
said to be uncomfortable with the media report on the matter so far.
Mark, we learnt, was directed to urgently “do something about the
impeachment threat “as according to our source, the presidency believes
that this election period was most inauspicious time for any lawmaker to
raise the bogey of impeachment.
Besides, the impeachment moves
on-going in the House of Representatives in which over 250 lawmakers
have reportedly appended their signature, has whipped up sufficient
concern in the presidency and within the PDP even the constitutional
process to that effect is very elongated and downright cumbersome.
Among the grievances of the lawmakers in both chambers of the National
Assembly particularly the Senate, are that the presidency was brusquely
intervening in the internal affairs of the Parliament in such a manner
that it was beginning to erode the independence of the legislature and
thereby violating the basic democratic principles of Separation of
Powers.
The November 20 invasion of the National Assembly by the
security agencies on the alleged orders of the executive arm of
government was, according to the lawmakers, the high point of the
infraction on the statutory rights of the legislature.
Also, the
parliamentarians have catalogued a roll-call of what they believe were
the constitutional violations of the president which in the apex law
book, warrants the removal of the president from office.
Above
all, the lawmakers of both chambers believe that the executive on the
behest of the President, has abysmal contempt for the parliament which
they said, often shows in the way cabinet ministers, the heads of the
various parastatals and agencies of government flout legislative
directives or refuse to honour parliamentary committee summons as well
as withholding of operational funds due to the National Assembly.
The opposition in the Senate particularly, is dissatisfied by what some
of their Senators described as the overwhelming influence of the
executive on the Senate.
For the PDP senators who are part of the
impeachment, their major grouse is hinged on the basis that President
Jonathan and the leadership of the PDP are allegedly playing games with
the issue of automatic ticket reported to have promised about 40
Senators to return to the parliament in 2015 when the lawmakers had a
parley with the president at the Aso Rock Villa recently.
As the
prospect of an impeachment action this week against Mr President seemed
to be a mere castle in the air with the said intervention of David Mark,
Senate Spokesman, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has already dismissed as a no
issue, the threat of impeachment. Abaribe told newsmen late last week,
that an impeachment process was non-existent to his knowledge.
But Sunday Independent gathered that the pro-impeachment Senators have
continued to hold consultations among themselves on whether or not, to
proceed with their plot despite the said frantic intervention by the
Senate President, David Mark.
The event in the House of
Representatives however seemed to be providing sufficient grounds for
the aggrieved Senators to be considering whether to push ahead in their
impeachment plans.
Though the Presidency is pretending not to be
worried about the threat of impeachment, Sunday Independent can
authoritatively reveal that the Villa is quite worried and has commenced
moves to stave the threat.
A dependable presidency source told
this newspaper in confidence at the weekend that the news of growing
numbers of members of PDP said to be joining the move to serve
impeachment notice on the president has been confirmed by the presidency
to be true, a development that has thrown the president’s men into
panic.
Not knowing how best to approach and pacify the lawmakers
without giving the parliamentarians the impression that the presidency
is afraid of them, a move to involve the State Governors in begging the
aggrieved lawmakers has begun.
Sunday Independent reliably
gathered also that the constant bashing of the government of President
Goodluck Jonathan by former President Olusegun Obasanjo is also causing
big headache for the government and that the presidency is currently
looking for how best to pacify the ex-president who seem to have made up
his mind to fight the government of President Jonathan to a standstill.
Ex-President Obasanjo, like he has been doing in the last two years,
few days ago, took the government of President Jonathan to the cleaners
once again, accusing the presidency of encouraging corruption and as
well refusing to tackle the menace of insurgency at the right time,
blaming the new wave of the malaise on the inaction of the presidency.
The president’s men were quite angry that the former president once
again openly condemned the government of President Jonathan at a time
some “rebels in the parliament are trying to create tensions in the
polity through the alleged impeachment threat”.
The current move
by Obasanjo, it was gathered, was viewed by the present administration
as a move to encourage and give credibility to the allegations being
raised against president Jonathan by the National Assembly.
The
House of Representative members were the first to express their
readiness to push out the president from office through impeachment
following his alleged stoking of the crisis rocking the parliament which
is said to be targeted at getting the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal removed from office through any means
possible, following his defection from the PDP to the APC.
Aggrieved members of the House of Representatives who commenced the
process of gathering signatures for the service of impeachment notice on
the President had compiled 50 impeachable offences against him on the
account of the invasion of their legislative House by the police.
While the president’s men were initially ignoring the Reps whom they
considered as “trouble makers” reality began to dawn on them on the
seriousness of the matter when the news of PDP members in the Senate
joining their APC colleagues in signing for the service of impeachment
notice on the president became open.
Speaking on the move to
pacify the aggrieved legislators, a presidency source disclosed to this
newspaper that a team has been put together by the “friends of the
president” to appeal to the state governors “to consider what the
legislators can do the president and help save the situation by giving
what the parliamentarians want to them”.
The source said that the
fact is not lost on the presidency that the PDP members in the National
Assembly are joining the moves to “embarrass” the president through the
impeachment notice as a negotiating methodology to getting the
president to give in to their demand for automatic ticket to contest the
2015 election and nothing more.
Getting the state governors who
have made up their minds to stifle the ambition of most federal
legislators to return to the National Assembly, to back down on the
project has become a big problem for the presidency as the earlier
agreement reached between the presidency and the legislators which would
have seen a minimum of 60 percent of PDP lawmakers given the party’s
ticket to contest the election once again, was rejected by the state
governors who perceived it as an affront on their power and control of
the state chapters of the party.
“It will be foolish of anyone to wave away the threat of impeachment against the president as a non issue.
“Our party members in the National Assembly are boxed into a corner, they are prepared to fight back, and they may fight dirty.
“We are hoping to persuade the State Governors to see reasons why the
legislators must be given some slack. It will be a disaster if the
Governors send all of them packing on December 6 and 7 when the
primaries for House of Representatives and the Senate will hold across
the states.
“Believe me, if majority of the federal
parliamentarians get their ticket back, the impending embarrassment will
be averted” the source said.
Another source who is a member of
the party’s Board of Trustee told Sunday Independent in confidence on
Friday that a decision has been taken to involve three prominent
traditional rulers in the efforts at pacifying former president Obasanjo
and make him see reasons why he should stop castigating the government
of President Jonathan.
According to the high ranking PDP member,
three eminent traditional rulers who have been identified as people
Obasanjo have much respect for are to be contacted and given the task of
talking to the former president and prevailing on him to “stop
destroying the house he assisted to build”.
Daily Indepedent
