By Eric Elezuo
While the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and the principal officers of the two legislative chambers, have on many occasions tried to portray the relationship between the National Assembly and the president as cordial, The Boss’ investigations have revealed that all is not really well with the lawmakers and the executive, chiefly the president, Muhammadu Buhari. The lawmakers’ grouse is bordered on the president’s inability to checkmate the spreading insecurity ravaging the country, and the fact that it is fast threatening to consume the nation’s capital, Abuja.
During the week, the minority caucuses of the National Assembly vowed that they will explore constitutional means to impeach Buhari after a six weeks ultimatum earlier issued by senators over the rising insecurity in the country.
The minority caucuses, which have successfully harmonised itself into a potent pressure group in the National Assembly, had after a meeting, lamented that Abuja “the seat of power is no longer safe and we cannot continue to fold our arms till things get out of hand”.
Speaking on behalf of the caucuses, the House of Representatives Minority Leader, Ndudi Elumelu, disclosed that “recently Kuje Prison was attacked and as if that was not enough, Minister of Education directed that all students should vacate their campuses; similarly, the FCT has also directed that schools in FCT should hurriedly close because of insecurity, Abuja is no longer safe and things are at a standstill”.
He sadly regretted that on many occasions, the National Assembly had drawn the attention of President Buhari to the insecurity in the land, stressing that that nothing concrete has been done to address it.
Deviating from the insecurity situation, Elumelu further lamented the scarcity of aviation fuel as well as inability of farmers to go to farm while attributing all to the failure of the APC led government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
“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 as to what is happening in Nigeria, most importantly in FCT. In FCT, just few weeks back, Kuje Prison was invaded. Few days back, the law school on Bwari road, some very, very important Nigerians who at their youth in the armed forces were butchered by the insurgents.
“They have given 6 to 8 weeks for Mr. President to address the insecurity that is, of course, affecting this nation, and I want to also join on behalf of my colleagues to also say that upon the expiration, we will proffer ways of ensuring that we will gather all the signatures.
“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 the bipartisanship are affected. Many of them are affected. So, they may not be speaking but we may be speaking for them. And when them time comes. I heard somebody this morning saying it is a laughable attempt to want 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 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,” Elumelu said.
The lawmakers’ patience had reached a boiling point when on Wednesday, the Senate caucus slammed a six week ultimatum on President Buhari to fix the insecurity situation or face impeachment from the National Assembly. The motion had been brought before the senate only to be thrown away by the senate president. In protest, the opposition senators stormed out of the plenary chanting anti-Buhari slogans including “Buhari must go” as a way of venting their anger on the way the insecurity situation is encroaching on daily lives of individuals in the country. The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Philip Aduda, led the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus of the National Assembly in the protest.
The NASS members, cutting across party divide, in their protests, revealed that the meeting of the caucuses of the two chambers of the National Assembly was called to harmonise their positions on the impeachment procedure against President Buhari at the expiration of the six weeks ultimatum.
In a show that the call for the sacking of Buhari was not just a Senate affair, their counterparts in the House of Representatives joined them, barely 24 hours later, joined them. They also expressed the worsening security situation as the reason for their action
Earlier, the Minority Leader in the Senate, Senator Aduda, who said Buhari must shape up or ship out, had noted as follows:
“Our actions yesterday (Wednesday July 27, 2022) 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 need to salvage it immediately and we also agreed that we must issue an impeachment notice to the President if the situation keeps deteriorating because the primary responsibility of government is the protection of lives of the citizens”.
Respondents, who spoke to the Boss, observed that it took the lawmakers a long time to begin to voice their disgust over the general maladministration that has characterised the Buhari regime, saying that things got worst from the the first day of administration. They noted that while the members of the APC party had remained in the business of defending the president even as he was underperforming, the situation has reached a level where no one can continue to hide without speaking out irrespective of party affiliation.
This is proved as Senators and members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other opposition parties, including the ruling APC, said they were taking judicial notice of various constitutional breaches by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Earlier in 2012, lawmakers had insinuated that at the right time, every constitutional option would be explored to ensure all the breaches committed by Buhari would be are addressed. They said the Constitution would be followed in applying necessary sanctions. The lawmakers spoke in Abuja after an emergency meeting that lasted for over two hours, convened to brainstorm on the worsening security situation.
They said the president had not been seen or heard by Nigerians on how he intends to tackle the many issues confronting the country, not limited to insecurity.
The then Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, who spoke on behalf of the caucus, had said the president had been absent from duty despite security challenges affecting every part of the country.
“The minority caucus of the National Assembly expresses very strong concern about the ineptitude and the inability of the APC-led government to arrest the drift to anarchy of our nation at this time. The caucus has taken note of the fact that the President is absent from duty. We have not seen our president. We have not heard from our president despite the daily killings that have turned Nigeria into a killing field of unimaginable proportions. Therefore, the caucus has taken note and will continue to take note of the constitutional breaches that is happening at this time by the government of the APC and will at the appropriate time utilise all constitutional methods and measures available after consultations with our colleagues to do the needful to save the country from collapse. We also, as a caucus, want to put on notice to all Nigerians and the international community about the threats to the lives of our members, to those who come out to say things that are true about the state of Nigeria today, and this threats have come in various forms, including threat to life,” he said
The senator representing Abia South, who is presently with the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) said opposition lawmakers were worried that the Buhari-led government was piling up more burdens on Nigerians, with no plans to fix the economy, stressing that inflation was at its peak, with the naira seriously devalued against major foreign currencies.
The lawmakers also frowned at the claims that the Buhari-led government printed the Naira to augment shortfall in the monthly allocation to federal, states and local councils while opposing the continued superintendent of the NIN registration by Dr. Isa Pantami saying the country had lost confidence in the minister.
“We ask the government to go ahead and summon the courage to do the needful that when people lose confidence in a member of this government, that person should either quit or be fired. We should not lose hope in the country, but we should do everything possible to able to get rid of this APC-led government when the time for elections comes.”
As at today, the dollar exchanges for N710 while Patami remains Minister of Communication. The lawmakers believe that Buhari is not ready to listen to anyone while relishing in his maladministration of the country, and are set for impeachment process to prove they are tired of him and his regime.
But rather than assuage the lawmakers, the presidency through the two presidential media aides, have continuously lashed out at the lawmakers using various invectives and derogative adjectives including ridiculous, confused and laughable to qualify them.
Femi Adesina said the lawmakers are wasting their time in their quest to call the president to order, noting that “I think it was just bravado, and sadly, security is not something you subject to bravado. You don’t begin to issue flippant ultimatums in something that is a matter of life and death. They know in their heart of hearts that they cannot achieve what they are saying, they are just wasting the country’s time, wasting the time of the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly, they know that they cannot achieve it.
“The truth is that in this kind of scenario, minority will always have its say while the majority will have its way.”
Following Adesina’s outburst, Garba Shehu, another of Buhari’s spokesman, released an official statement describing the impeachment attempt as ridiculous.
“The performative and babyish antics of those senators staging a walk-out notwithstanding, Senate President Ahmad Lawan’s refusal on Wednesday to entertain the ridiculous motion to impeach our President was quite appropriate and correct.
“Rather than making a mockery out of voters by trying to imitate what they see in America, the opposition would be well advised that their time would be better spent tackling the pressing issues Nigerians face, such as the current global cost of living crisis.
“Their continued failure to do so goes some way to explaining why they remain in opposition.
“In contrast, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is committed to finding lasting solutions to the emerging security threats, including those left behind by the PDP in the South-South, the Northeast and throughout the federation.
“In the last 24 hours, two more Chibok girls were freed, in addition to the three brought home last week.
”These kinds of headline-grabbing stunts for which the opposition is now well known serve no one, least of all their constituents.
“We would respectfully remind them that it is those same constituents that they were elected to serve, and are paid to do so with public money.
“No one is asking them to waste their time attempting to impeach a democratically elected President at the end of his second term certainly not their constituents.
“They should ask themselves: do they want to be in government or do they want to be in the headlines? If they want to be in government they should start acting like it and stop undermining Nigerian voters,” the statement reads.
From both body languages and utterances, the lawmakers across party lines have expressed their disdain for Buhari’s continuous show of ineptitude in the administration of the country, especially in the area of security, and not forgetting economy and corruption. But six weeks will soon come and go, and Nigerians will know if the lawmakers are really tired of Buhari.
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