By Yinka Kolawole in Osogbo
The Osun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has warned President Muhammadu Buhari against acts capable of plunging the country into a civil war, saying tampering with the constitutionally guaranteed immunity of governors would spell doom for the country.
The party in a statement issued in Osogbo by its Director of Research, Publicity and Strategy, Prince Diran Odeyemi, urged the president to immediately drop plans to impose travel ban on the Governors of Ekiti and Rivers States, Ayo Fayose and Nyesom Wike, saying there was nothing done to Buhari by the duo that Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State did not do to Goodluck Jonathan while in office.
Odeyemi said the same Section 308 of the Constitution that gives the president immunity also provides the governors with same leverage, adding that instead of tinkering with the idea of travel ban on the governors, if any security infraction is noticed, the president should approached the court.
Recalling how the PDP Obasanjo-led federal government approached the court when the administration of Senator Bola Tinubu created local government areas in Lagos State, Odeyemi opined that adding the salt of travel ban on governors with immunity which is the same as the president, to the injury of constant flouting of court orders by the Buhari administration in the last one, is not portraying the president as a true democrat.
The statement read: “Since the news broke of plans by Buhari to ban PDP governors Fayose and Wike from travelling using the Department of State Services (DSS) as threat, images of events of the past years have kept on reappearing.
“Allusions have been made to how the late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade and his friend, the late Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero were slammed with travel ban by General Buhari in 1984” “Also reference has been made to how President Shehu Shagari was kept under house arrest and his deputy, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, locked up in Kirikiri where he nearly died when that administration was toppled by Buhari in 1983.”
“History also records how Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Bola Ige and others were hauled into prison by the same Buhari regime.”
“We hope President Buhari will not take wrong advise because the situation now does not favour tampering with the constitution as he did in 1983”
“We don’t want anything that can truncate this democracy. Attempt to strip two PDP governors of their immunity when Aregbesola did worse things to Jonathan as president and nothing happened to him is capable of enacting civil war.”
The party then called on all past Heads of State and presidents to prevail on Buhari to shelve the idea to save the country of needles tension and constitutional crises.
