Sunday Aborisade looks at the nine constitutional steps required by the National Assembly to impeach a sitting president
The event of last Wednesday in the Senate when senators sang solidarity songs against President Muhammadu Buhari and initiated moves to sack him from office if he failed to tackle insecurity within the next six weeks, took an average Nigerian with great surprise.
Many Nigerians including lawmakers, legal experts and civil society communities have however said, the exercise was already belated because of the time frame available to actualise the constitutional procedure.
By the calculation of some people who had reacted to the development, it could take the National Assembly, about six months to actualise its impeachment process against Buhari, from when the ultimatum would lapse in September 20.
They believed that the general elections slated for February next year would have been concluded and a new president would have been elected before the National Assembly would conclude the impeachment process.
Many commentators had equally argued that majority of the lawmakers in the nation’s parliament would be busy with their re-election bid and may not be interested in the impeachment saga as from September when the Independent National Electoral Commission would open the floor for campaigns.
According to Section 143 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), nine steps are required to impeach the President.
The first step made it mandatory for the National Assembly (both chambers) to send a notice of any allegation in writing alleging gross misconduct on the part of the President, to him.
The notice must be signed by not less than one-third of the members of the National Assembly (both the Senate and House of Representatives) and it would be presented to the Senate President.
Gross misconduct, according to the Constitution, is “a grave violation or breach of the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) or a misconduct of such nature as amounts in the opinion of the National Assembly to gross misconduct.”
The Senate President, in the second step, must within seven days, serve the President and each member of the National Assembly with a copy of the notice of allegation.
The President of the country in the third step, has a right of reply (he/she does not have to reply however), and any such statement in reply to the allegation must be served on each member of the National Assembly.
Step four requires that within 14 days of the presentation of the notice to the Senate President, each chamber of the National Assembly shall resolve by motion without any debate whether or not the allegation shall be investigated.
Such motion needs to be passed by at least two-thirds majority of all members of each chamber of the National Assembly.
In the fifth step, if the motion fails to reach the two-thirds majority, the process immediately stops, and no further action would be taken.
However, if the two-thirds majority is obtained and the motion is passed, then the Senate President will within seven days of the passing of the motion, request the Chief Justice of Nigeria to appoint a panel of seven persons who in his opinion are of unquestionable integrity to investigate the allegations.
Members of the panel must be men and women of proven integrity and should not be members of any public service, legislative house or political party.
The President whose conduct is being investigated under this section shall, in the sixth step, have the right to defend himself in person and be represented before the Panel by legal practitioners of his own choice.
In step seven, a Panel shall be appointed which shall;
(a) Have such powers and exercise its functions in accordance with such procedure as may be prescribed by the National Assembly; and
(b) Within three months of its appointment report its findings to each House of the National Assembly.
In step eight, where the Panel reports that the allegation has not been proven, there will be no further action.
However, if the report is that the allegation against the President has been proven, then the National Assembly will consider the report, and a resolution for the adoption of the report shall be moved.
In step nine, for the resolution to be adopted, it must be supported by not less than two-thirds majority of all the members of each House.
Once adopted, the President shall stand removed from office as from the date of the adoption of the report.
Many analysts are of the believe that It would be difficult for the federal lawmakers to achieve their plan at this moment. They argued that the legislators should have initiated the impeachment process earlier than now if they really wanted to achieve anything meaningful with the exercise.
On his part, Chairman of Senate Committee on Information and National Orientation, Senator DanladiSankara, dissociated himself from an alleged plot by some senators to impeach the Senate President, Dr Ahmad Lawan, for the eventual impeachment proceedings against President Buhari.
Sankara, who represents Jigawa Northwest in the upper legislative chamber, refuted claims by certain online news publications linking him to the plot by some senators to impeach the Senate President
He said at no time was he consulted or co-opted into such plan by the 11 other Senators alleged to be masterminding the plot, adding: “It is just the figment of imagination of the online publications and the others, who are linking me to such a move.
According to him: “I was present throughout plenary sessions of last Tuesday and Wednesday, nobody approached me or sought my consent to join any move to impeach the Senate President or President MuhammaduBuhari.”
He pointed out that what was required at this time was maturity and understanding of leaders and people to ensure that Nigeria overcome the challenges of insecurity and economic downturn.
Sankara said: “It is very important for leaders to explore workable methods to address the issues of insecurity .
“It is not proper for us to further heat up the polity when we should put heads together to explore workable solutions to the issues of the economy and insecurity. It is a collective responsibility on the part of the leaders and the people.”
Also commenting, Senator GershomBassey representing Cross River South Senatorial District, said the impeachment plot was the second stage of the National Assembly plan to force President Buhari, to act on the issue of insecurity.
He said, “For me, the media has missed the point of our action. Our aim is to ensure safety of lives and properties in our country.
“The point of our action is not impeachment. That is why we have given a six-week threshold within which the President is expected to do something about insecurity in Nigeria.
“Our hope is that we expect the President will respond to our concerns so that everything would have been sorted out at the end of the six-week ultimatum.
“Part two which is impeachment would happen if the President failed to address the issue of insecurity within the six weeks period. If there is insecurity without the type of response that we expect, within six weeks, then, we move for impeachment.
“We are serious about the impeachment notice but we will only get there if government continue to pay lip service to the issue of insecurity.
“Why are the Kaduna train services still in captivity? Why has there been any arrest or anyone accountable over what happened in Kuje prisons? These are questions begging for answers.
“There are a number of actions that needed to be taken. The entire National Assembly is involved in the plan to make the President address the situation just that only the opposition lawmakers are talking.
“The Senate President will cooperate with whatever plans we want to carry out if President Buhari failed to act decisively. I hope we won’t get into the issue of insecurity before the president takes action. It is a bipartisan efforts to ensure that the president is up and doing.
“The six-week ultimatum is just the last stroke. We’ve passed many resolutions and urging the executive to act. Even when they complain of lack of money, we gave them through appropriation. We even passed supplementary budget.”
