About sixty-three senators as of Thursday have signed up to the plan to
impeach President Goodluck Jonathan in the upper legislative chamber
One of the arrowheads of the move to remove Jonathan in the Senate
showed newsmen the list containing the signatures of the senators.
The source said eight Peoples Democratic Party senators were among the
signatories to the planned impeachment notice.
There are 109 members in the Senate.
An All Progressives Congress senator from the North-West zone, who asked
not to be named,told our correspondent that the lawmakers’ major grouse was the
President’s handling of the economy and political affairs of the country.
The senator cited poor implementation of the national budget since 2011,
alleged high level of corruption and “gross disregard” of the legislature at
both the federal and state levels as topping the list of lawmakers’ anger
against Jonathan.
Asked whether he realised that the process of impeachment could be
tedious and cumbersome, the senator said, “ We know and we are prepared to show
the President that we have responsibility to the people and the nation in
general.
“We are prepared to lay the impeachment notice anytime from next week.
Meetings are already being held.”
Senator Ibrahim Musa (APC Niger North) confirmed that there were moves
by some members of the Senate to initiate impeachment proceedings against the
President but failed to give details.
“I think there is something like that but I don’t have the details, it
is still coming as a rumour,” Musa said.
But it was learnt that
the impeachment move against the President had really gained momentum with the
APC senators mobilising themselves to carry out the exercise anytime from next
week.
Investigations by our correspondent revealed that some PDP senators, who
were initially at the forefront of the struggle, had retreated following the
intervention of the senate leadership and the promise of automatic tickets by
the party.
It was learnt that the PDP senators had been pleading with their APC
colleagues to hold on till next week pending the outcome of the moves by the
senate leadership to ensure the realisation of the automatic tickets agreement
they had with the PDP and Jonathan.
An APC senator told our correspondent on condition of anonymity that the
impeachment letter contains the signature of both the APC and PDP senators.
He explained that the letter could not be laid on the floor of the
senate because some PDP senators appealed to them to delay the action.
He said, “The truth of the matter is that the impeachment notice would
have been laid if not for our colleagues in the PDP who pleaded with us to
delay the process pending when the senate leadership would come up with the
result of its efforts at securing automatic tickets for them.
“In any case the process had started but if we submit the letter now,
the signatures of the PDP senators will be there and the party might want to
use that as an excuse to deny them their automatic tickets.”
The PDP senators contacted on the issue declined to make comment.
However, one of them who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the
process of impeachment had not been suspended.
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Politics