THE senators pushing for the removal of President Goodluck Jonathan have set December 16 as the date to set their plan rolling.
The arrowhead of the Jonathan-Must-Go in
the Senate, Senator Alkali Jajere, said on Tuesday in Abuja that the
aggrieved senators would table a motion for the impeachment of the
President before the Senate on the said date.
The Senate, currently on break to allow
members to participate in their respective political parties’
congresses, will resume on December 16.
Some of the anti-Jonathan senators said
the leadership of the upper chamber had allowed the long break in order
to frustrate the impeachment move but that they were adamant “in order
to save the country’s democracy.”
Jajere, who spoke with journalists
outside the Senate chambers on Tuesday, said two more senators had
indicated interest to sign the impeachment motion immediately after
plenary thereby increasing the number of signatories to 65.
He said, “As of today, the required
signatures to initiate the impeachment process had been obtained. The
Senate has adjourned to December 16, so by that date the impeachment
motion will be presented on the floor of the Senate.
“As of last week, 63 of us had signed up
for the impeachment; my signature was the fourth but I can confirm to
you that we have 63 signatures but after the session today two people
had called and told me that they want to sign.
“One of them is an All Progressives
Congress senator who was away doing campaign because he is contesting
the governorship election of his state. The other person is a Peoples
Democratic Party senator.
“Before the end of today I can assure you
that the list will swell up to 70. It is on the impeachment day that we
need two-thirds of the members to carry out the exercise but we need
only one-third, which we already have, to initiate the process. It is
just a matter of one day sitting. We will just push it before the two
chambers.”
Jajere said he signed the impeachment
motion because of his conviction that there were impeachable offences
against Jonathan and that the process started early in the year but was
truncated.
The senator, who said he practised
journalism for 27 years, insisted that the constitutional breaches
committed by the President were enough grounds to impeach him.
He said, “In 2011, this Senate approved
N240bn as subsidy fund but the same government spent N1.7trn, which is a
clear breach of the constitution and clear breach of the Appropriation
Act.
“The business of government is to curtail
excesses but this government has shown that it is incurably deficient
in handling the situations in this country. That government cannot say
it wants to continue.
“The President should have even resigned
without waiting for him to be impeached. The duty of the legislature is
to act as a check and balance because it is the most important symbol of
democracy.
“If you don’t have the legislature, you
don’t have democracy because every other arm of government exists even
when there is no democracy. It is only the legislature that makes a
democracy a government.
“The impeachment issue is not just coming
now. It is a process that started early in the year but there was a
hiccup. But today, there are issues that have triggered the National
Assembly to do what it should do.”
He added that the process of impeachment
had started in earnest and expressed confidence that it could be
concluded before the general elections next year.
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