By Athanasius Gogo

The impeachment move against President Muhamadu Buhari is gathering momentum as members of the opposition parties in the national assembly have come together to join forces against
him

The idea was first mooted by members of the minority parties in the senate followed on thursday by their counterparts in the House of Representatives

The opposition lawmakers who stated this at a joint meeting of the caucuses last week gave Buhari six weeks ultimatum to address the rising security challenges in the country or risk being impeached.

Senators from opposition political parties had last Wednesday staged a walkout from the Senate plenary when the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan turned down move to mandate Buhari to improve the security situation in six weeks or be impeached.

The aggrieved lawmakers told journalists that they had agreed with their colleagues from the majority caucus of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at a closed-door session, that the president would be given the six weeks ultimatum.

Addressing journey after the meeting, minority leader of the House, Ndudi Elumelu, said they were joining their senate comparts in the move to impeach the president if he failed to tackle the heightened insecurity.

Elumelu said: “They have given 6 to 8 weeks for Mr. President to address the insecurity that is, of course, affecting this nation, and I want to also join on behalf of my colleagues to also say that upon the expiration, we will proffer ways of ensuring that we will gather all the signatures.

“And let me make it clear. Those who are thinking that it is only the issue of PDP or the minority caucus, no. Many of our colleagues under the bipartisanship are affected. Many of them are affected. So, they may not be speaking but we may be speaking for them. And when them time comes.

“I heard somebody this morning saying it is a laughable attempt to want do that. Perhaps, when the action starts, the person will find out that it’s not a laughable action. It’s real and we will not stand to allow this nation collapse.

“We think that it is high time, the insecurity of this nation is addressed. And of course, we also have the issue of oil theft which has risen, now making it difficult for us to earn income from oil revenue.  And these and many others are the reasons we are joining our colleagues in the Senate to ask Mr. President to address the insecurity of this nation within 6 and 8 weeks.”

While lamenting the height of insecurity in the country, the House minority leader said: “In FCT, just few weeks back, Kuje Prison was invaded. Few days back, the law school on Bwari road, some very important Nigerians who at their youth in the armed forces were butchered by the insurgents.

“As if that was not enough, the minister of education gave an instruction that all our children should leave, vacate their various schools. Yesterday, the FCT minister directed that all private schools should be closed. And I gave a warning on the floor of the House, advising my colleagues that Abuja is no longer safe and that is the truth.

“If Abuja is safe, why should the minister of education under APC led government instruct that every child in every college or school should vacate and parents should come and collect their children. Why should the FCT minister himself direct that private school should close? This in effect gives a signal that Abuja is not safe. 

“Our farmers can no longer go to the farms and I believe that we are worst hit in terms of food production. And this is because our farmers can no longer go to the various farms and it is bad.

“And if you look at what happened also between Kaduna and Abuja where the bandits bombed the train; and yesterday, one of them rescued was asked, would you ever use the train and he said never.”

Lamenting the shrinking economy, Elumelu said: “it’s now N710 to a dollar as at yesterday and if we are not careful, if may rise to N1000 and beyond. And today, our reserve is almost gone. We do not have any reserve any more. The reserve is gone and these were the things that took PDP led government time to build.”

On his part, the senate minority leader, Philip Aduda said the opposition senators have to issue impeachment notice to Buhari for failing in his primary duty of ensuring the security of lives and property of Nigerians.

“We all agreed that the security architecture is failing and there is need to salvage it immediately and we also agreed that we must issue; for some who do not know, the issue is to issue an impeachment notice to the President because the primary responsibility of government is the protection of lives of the citizens. Once that is not done, then, there is a problem.

“So, the issues were discussed in the closed session including the other members of other parties put together and we all agreed that this bipartisan. We have called the caucus in the House of Representatives so that we can discuss with them so that they can hear from us and understand what we did yesterday,” Aduda said.