The senate leadership has denied allegations that they support the impeachment of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua over complications arising from his prolonged absence from office.
The senate had, last week through a motion, asked Mr Yar’Adua to formally inform them of his vacation to enable the vice president act in his stead while he was away. The senate did not put a time limit on when the president was supposed to write and send the letter because their motions do not have the binding power of laws.
However, there are reports that the Senate would commence impeachment of President Yar’Adua for gross misconduct if, after 14 days, he refused to transmit the letter in accordance with section 145 of the 1999 constitution.
“Let me restate for emphasis that there is no attempt to impeach the president or his vice,” Ayogu Eze, the spokesperson of the Senate said on Sunday. “There is equally no motion known to the senate on the matter. The senate believes that impeachment is a fractious process that will end up dividing the country and heating up the polity.” Mr. Eze said what the Senate did by the motion was to advise the president to transmit a letter informing the National Assembly that he is on medical vacation, as a way of bringing down tension in the polity and finding a way around “a knotty constitutional lacuna.”
President Yar’Adua left Nigeria 70 days ago to Saudi Arabia on a vacation to treat acute pericarditis but did not write the Senate to inform it of his trip before he left. In accordance with section 145 of the 1999 constitution, President Yar’Adua should have, willingly, written the letter before or after he left so that the Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan, can officially act in his stead.
“As it is, given the way section 145 of the 1999 constitution is, there is nothing anybody can do to compel the president to issue the letter,” he said. “However, as elder statesmen and representatives of the Nigerian people, we felt we had a duty to speak up in support of the right thing being done, even if the constitution had glossed over its necessity.” He said the Senate’s resolution urging President Yar’Adua to write a vacation notice letter is enough to produce the desired result, “moreso when our call has been backed by former presidents and the cream of Nigeria’s elder statesmen as well as the international community.
“I wish therefore to state categorically that at no time did the issue of impeachment arise in the senate either when the matter was taken in plenary or in closed sessions,” Mr. Eze said.
No hasty decisions
Mr. Eze also said the leadership of the Senate will not be blackmailed or provoked into any hasty decision to impeach the president. “We are responsible and patriotic enough to know that we cannot contemplate criminalising ill health.
Anybody can fall sick at anytime. The issue of health lies with God. It is therefore mischievous to allege that the Senate leadership was in favour of impeaching the president and his vice. This was never discussed and was never contemplated,” he said. “We all love our president. We all love our country too, and will do whatever it will take to preserve her corporate existence.”
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