Sunday Aborisade, Abuja
With about a month to the end of the six-week ultimatum the senate gave President Muhammadu Buhari to end insecurity in the country or face impeachment, Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs and Excise, Senator Francis Fadahunsi, has said his colleagues have made up their minds to sack President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, if he attempts to frustrate the process. The PDP chieftain representing Osun East Senatorial District stated this yesterday in Abuja during an interview with journalists, exactly one week after the ultimatum was issued.
Fadahunsi, while reacting to comments by presidential spokesmen, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, which dismissed the impeachment move as mere “bravado”, said his colleagues had made up their minds to go ahead with the impeachment proceedings.
The retired Deputy Comptroller General of the Nigerian Customs Service said majority of the senators across political party lines had already passed a vote of no confidence on Buhari because of his administration’s inability to address the worsening security situation in the country. He expressed doubts about the ability of Buhari to tackle what he termed the embarrassing security challenges currently facing the country in six weeks, since he could not do so in seven years.
Fadahunsi vowed that the impeachment proceedings would commence as soon as his colleagues resumed from their current six-week annual vacation on September 20.
The opposition senator added, “We have been talking and giving suggestions on how we could end the insecurity challenges facing the country, but the head (Senate President) is hooked to the villa. He has been frustrating all moves by us to take drastic measures against the president.
“We have now made up our minds to strike now that the iron is still hot instead of wasting our time, cooperating with the Ahmad Lawan leadership while the nation is being destroyed by terrorists, with no plan by the government to stop them. We won’t wait until we are all killed.
“We have now decided to pull out of the rubber stamp arrangement so that the whole Nigerians would know that we have not been in support of the failing economy, the huge debts accumulation, falling naira, insecurity across the country, and the unprecedented forms of corruption going on in the polity.
“Unfortunately, the man heading us now (Lawan) was leading the opposition lawmakers before and was challenging the rots in the system then. Now, he doesn’t want anyone to challenge the Buhari government when things are falling apart every day.
“Any leader that opposes such challenge in a democratic setting must also be challenged because we are elected by the people.
“Go and interview most of the senators. There is no effective oversight of the ministries, departments and agencies of the federal government. Buhari will bring the budget and his people here will want us to pass it as he brings it. No examinations and heads of MDAs are doing what they like.
“Those who voted for Buhari in 2015 thought he could contain the insecurity, being a former military general, but, unfortunately, things are getting worse under his watch and he appears helpless.”
Fadahunsi added, “That is why we resolved that if we come back on September 20 and discovered that the situation is still the same, with no appreciable steps taken, we would impeach him.
“We will first impeach anyone who says we will not impeach Buhari. If anybody tries to block us here, whether the senate Ppresident or anyone in the senate, we will remove the person.
“Mr. President is finding it difficult to sack his non-performing security chiefs while those terrorising the nation are not being arrested. There is tension everywhere and something drastic had to be taken.”
PDP senators had walked out of the red chamber during plenary on Wednesday last week after Lawan blocked moves to commence impeachment moves against Buhari over the security situation in the country.
Reacting to the development, presidential media aides, Femi Adesina and Garba Shehu, had both condemned the action of the opposition senators.
Adesina had said, “I think it (impeachment) 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.”
Shehu had also said, “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.”
