Impeachment: Lawmakers and the culture of brazen impunity

The move by five aggrieved lawmakers in the 26-member Akwa Ibom
State House of Assembly to remove the Speaker and the state
governor, as alleged, has again put politicians’ penchant for
disregarding due process and Nigeria’s troubled democracy under the
spotlight, TUNDE AJAJA writes

All manner of undemocratic practices have continued to
characterise Nigeria’s political space especially as the 2019
general elections draw closer.

Two weeks ago, the brewing political crisis in the Akwa Ibom
State House of Assembly assumed a worrisome dimension when five
lawmakers, whose seats had been declared vacant by the Speaker,
allegedly sought to impeach the speaker of the 26-member Assembly
and the state governor.

The speaker, Onofiok Luke, had declared their seats vacant when
the five lawmakers defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to
the All Progressives Congress. The speaker had said his action was
in line with Section 109 subsection 1(g) of the 1999 Constitution
as amended.

The incident brings to the fore a popular statement in a letter
written on August 10, 1794 by a former President of the United
States, George Washington, to Charles Mynn Thruston, the leader of
a regiment in the Continental Army during the American
Revolutionary War.

Washington said, “But if the laws are to be so trampled
upon—with impunity—and a minority (a small one too) is to dictate
to the majority, nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be
expected thereafter.”

The statement above aptly captures the scenario that played out
at the Assembly complex in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital,
penultimate Tuesday.

But it is equally worthy of note that the drama at the Assembly
is not the first of its kind in Nigeria’s political space.

Just a few weeks ago, nine members of the 26-member Ondo State
House of Assembly, including the former speaker, Mr. Bamidele
Oloyeloogun, and his deputy, Mr. Ogundeji Iroju, both of whom had
been impeached by the House, sat at a plenary and said they had
suspended the 15 members that impeached Oloyeloogun and Iroju.

The lawmakers, who are said to be loyal to the state governor,
Rotimi Akeredolu, at the plenary and amid tight security also said
they had dissolved all standing committees, appointed three new
principal officers and amended the 2018 budget.

While all these were happening, the 15 members alleged threat to
their lives and claimed they had been forced to leave the
state.

The needless political dramas have also happened in the federal
legislative chambers in the past and in recent times.

During the Goodluck Jonathan administration, some lawmakers had
scaled the fence to prevent the impeachment of Aminu Tambuwal, the
Speaker of the House of Representatives after his defection from
the PDP to the APC.

A few months ago, security agencies allegedly connived with some
political stakeholders to invade the National Assembly as part of
rumoured plot to impeach Senate President Bukola Saraki and Deputy
Senate President Ike Ekweremadu.

Sadly, undemocratic moves of this nature date back to the era
when former President Olusegun Obasanjo ruled the country between
1999 and 2007.

In 2006, for example, the then governor of Plateau State, Joshua
Dariye, was impeached by five out of the 24 members, even though
among other conditions stipulated in Section 188 of the 1999
Constitution (as amended), the motion for the impeachment of a
governor or his deputy shall be supported by not less than
two-thirds majority of all its members.

Also, on January 12, 2006, a former governor of Oyo State,
Rashidi Ladoja, was impeached by 18 out of the 32 members of the
Assembly, instead of the two-thirds (22) stipulated by the
constitution.

The Court of Appeal sitting in Ibadan, which later overturned
the removal, described the impeachment process as illegal,
unconstitutional, null and void.

The Presiding Judge, J. O. Jegede identified the faulty
processes to include the sitting of the legislators in an hotel
rather than the State House of Assembly to deliberate on the
impeachment; sending the notice of impeachment through the
newspapers; impeachment carried out by 18 rather than 22
legislators.

Similarly, the impeachment of a former governor of Anambra
State, Mr Peter Obi, in 2006 by the House of Assembly was later set
aside by the Court of Appeal in Enugu and the Supreme Court
successively. The two courts described the impeachment process as
illegal and null and void.

The Appeal Court said Obi was not duly served the motion for
impeachment and that the notice published in a national newspaper
was addressed to the Secretary to the State Government and not Obi
himself.

Meanwhile, lawyers and analysts who spoke to our correspondent
pointed out that there had been recurrences of such undemocratic
practices because politicians were not made to face the
consequences of violating due processes.

A senior lawyer, Chief Robert Clarke, SAN, said the latest drama
in Akwa Ibom State showed that lawmakers in the country had not
learnt their lessons, given the past rulings by the courts on such
matters.

He pointed out that even though the lawmakers knew their action
was wrong, they would continue to take such “illegal” steps because
they felt there would not be any consequence for violating the due
process.

Clarke explained that if the trend was not checked, it could
plunge the country into crisis.

He said, “If indeed the five members planned to impeach the
speaker and the governor, my honest opinion is that our lawmakers
in Nigeria have never learnt a lesson. They are driving this
country into danger and it may take us time to get out from it.

“The lawmakers know what they are doing is wrong, but they would
do it to create disorder and damn the consequence; they know that
nothing would come out of it. That is the impunity we have in
Nigeria today; impunity to steal money, divert national wealth and
do many illegal things. That impunity has been given to them by
this constitution.

“I have always said that the 1999 Constitution is the problem we
have in Nigeria today. It is a constitution that is so rotten and
people and the politicians are taking advantage of it. Until we
jettison that constitution, we can never make progress in Nigeria
and to jettison it, we need God’s presence to send a super force to
drive all these crooks away.”

Clarke added, “The Supreme Court has in Inakoju’s case laid down
a solid foundation for any House of Assembly to impeach a sitting
governor or a speaker. If you do not have the required
constitutional majority, you do not start a process of that nature.
But you see, in Nigeria, the rule of law has been trampled upon so
much, unfortunately, not only by the politicians but even the
judiciary itself.

“The United States Ambassador to Nigeria (William Symington)
said a few weeks ago that the problem of corruption in Nigeria is
not just financial but the disregard for justice and rule of law.
So, if these politicians are not taught a lesson, they will get
this country into ruins.”

The lawyer to Ladoja when the Supreme Court reinstated him as
the governor, Mr Yusuf Ali (SAN), while responding to questions
posed by our correspondent, expressed disappointment that some
politicians had not learnt their lessons from past events.

He said, “After Ladoja’s case, in which I was privileged to have
been his lawyer when he was restored as the governor, one would
have thought that lessons would have been learnt but our
legislators sometimes behave like adolescents. I think the maturity
that is necessary for people to reflect properly before taking
actions is lacking in most of these legislators. And I think it
doesn’t speak well of the system.

“Many of our political leaders behave like toddlers and it is
unfortunate. I think many of them don’t really understand the ethos
of democracy and rule of law and it’s a carry-over from our days
under military rule, and that is why many of them who have some
little authority believe that they can do anything and
unfortunately because in our system there are no consequences,
impunity is virtually promoted.

“There should be sanctions imposed on people who try such
things. For political office holders, the punishment in other
places is for them to be rejected at the poll, but in our own
system, it’s very interesting that votes hardly count when it
matters most and that is why in our electoral system the more you
look the less you see, and it’s a real problem.”

Asked if constitutional amendment might be a way out, he said,
“Even if you say we need to amend the constitution, who would do
that? These same people? The solution is when we have very acute
electorate and the electoral system is sane, then you can be very
sure that when people misbehave as elected officials, the
electorate would vote them out of office.”

A popular Lagos-based lawyer and public affairs analyst, Mr Jiti
Ogunye, said he would first doubt the veracity of the claim that
the five lawmakers sat to impeach the speaker and the governor,
given politicians’ penchant for making false claims.

He said, “My immediate reaction is to say how would five persons
even dare, imagine or contemplate to impeach the governor. So, is
that the truth or the governor just said that to justify the
invasion, because the governor ordinarily is not expected to lead a
large crowd of people to disrupt legislative house proceedings,
even if those proceedings were illegitimate and of course in this
case that it was illegitimate. So, I doubted it.

“But, assuming that those five errant members really wanted to
start an impeachment procedure and they weren’t just engaged in a
game of legislative showmanship and braggadocio to demonstrate that
nobody could expel them from the House, of course there is no
rational human being that will not decry it and then you wonder how
those five would do it.

“If they generate the notice to the Chief Judge of the state,
how would the Chief Judge receive it and there are specific
timelines in impeachment procedure that should be followed. That is
why I’m saying that the claim had to be taken with a pinch of
salt.

“So, the point I’m making is that if those five legislators
wanted to do that, it would mean that our politicians, in
particular legislators, have not learnt any lesson. Five members in
a 26-member House cannot originate an impeachment process. They are
not even up to one-third. As I have always maintained, I shudder to
call these politicians democratic actors because they are really
not acting democratically.”

Ogunye pointed out that politicians were the ones attempting to
destroy the nation’s democracy by their conduct and actions, which
according to him, makes people to ask themselves if they made the
right choice or if the “rogue politicians with rascality and
irresponsible behaviour” can entrench democracy.

He added, “The more these people misbehave, the more they derive
validation for that kind of notion that this civil rule we are
practising, which is going to be 20 years in 2019, is a highway to
nowhere and that it’s a mission impossible.

“We are talking about Akwa Ibom, what of the one in Edo, Ondo
and Anambra states’ Houses of Assembly? What of the National
Assembly? So, it’s all over and it’s very troubling.”

He therefore called on the Federal Government to take keen
interest in what was happening in the state, adding that even
though federalism was in place, the Federal Government, which
controls the police could not fold its arms, given the allegations
that the leaders of the high command of the force were partisan and
were supporting the minority to traduce the majority.

“The Federal Government should investigate and ensure that
justice is done, just as in the case of what happened in Ondo State
where media persons were beaten up by thugs in the presence of
policemen, who are federal agents paid by taxpayers money,” he
added.

The seasoned legal practitioner, however, cautioned that the
more people lost faith in the democracy, the more the chance that
opportunists could take advantage of it.

He recalled that past usurpations in Nigeria had always been on
the backdrop that the civilians were misbehaving.

He said the country had been lucky to have 20 years of
uninterrupted democracy and that if not that people were tired of
the military and would not make any excuse for military incursion
into politics, the civilians, especially politicians, had done
enough to discredit democracy and to give it a bad name in order
for it to be destroyed.

He said, “Everywhere you go, you see impunity and it’s giving
democracy a bad name in order to destroy it. It’s a devaluation of
democratic ethos such that when the people see these things, they
begin to wonder that this is not democracy and when those doubts
begin to gain root, opportunists and subverters of civil rule may
take advantage of that.”

On the way forward, Ogunye advised, “I think people should take
a step back and insist that they, not politicians, own this country
and that they would not allow politicians to destroy civil
governance or whatever resemblance of it that we have.”

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