The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the House of Representatives, on Monday, issued strong-worded threats to the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government (FG), over its alleged plots to cause the impeachment of Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state, vowing to frustrate forthwith all requests, by President Muhammad Buhari to the National Assembly (NASS).
The angry lawmakers, who briefed House of Representatives Correspondents in Abuja, over the ongoing charade in the Benue State House of Assembly under the alleged supervision of the federal-controlled police, said unequivocally, that they would commence their offensive with the Federal government on this matter, using the Buhari’s budget request for the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC), as an example.
The federal legislators warned that it was time now for the President and his party to exhibit caution over their desperation to seize power in all states of the federation as well as retain control at federal level in 2019.
Chukwuka Onyema, Minority Leader of the House, who briefed newsmen said that “the PDP House Caucus hereby condemns the ignoble action that is unfolding under the supervision of the APC Federal Government and the police in Benue state; the eight renegade fellows have no legal authority to serve any impeachment notice on the Governor of Benue state.
“The PDP House Caucus condemns the absolute disregard for the Nigerian Constitution and the people of Benue state whose land some highly connected herdsmen and their instigators desperately hope to convert into a huge ranchland.
“We condemn the gross injustice in Benue state and we hereby affirm that constitutionally, at least twenty members of the House of Assembly must sit to form a quorum and thereby, in its entirety, the so-called impeachment process begun by eight renegades and their sponsors must duly be described by all Nigerians as an illegality, an exercise in futility which shall remain null and void”, the PDP lawmakers stated.
They were angry that just on Monday morning, while all people of goodwill across the entire nation were “hoping to put the APC government’s merciless hunting of the Senate President behind them, armed policemen who had been drafted to Makurdi helped to put effect to the jackboot action against the government and people of Benue State.”
The PDP caucus said that it was common knowledge that Benue was a much troubled state, given what it called the unhindered atrocities of emboldened herdsmen, who have rampaged through several Benue communities, killing and maiming the old, the young and even toddlers and pregnant women.
“Yet for people nursing intense physical injuries and psychological wounds, the APC Federal Government has now added a blatant rape of their hope in democracy as eight APC members of the Benue State House of Assembly have· today, served Governor Samuel Ortom an impeachment notice.”
“The PDP Reps caucus expressed dismay, that the APC government came into office with the slogan of progressivism and change, but in reaction to Governor Ortom’s defection from the APC to the PDP, policemen took over the state House of Assembly complex and an impeached Speaker of the 30-member House who had been suspended for six months for “unparliamentary behaviour” presided over a mockery of the rule of law and democracy.
The federal lawmakers were disturbed that while the police aided the eight state lawmakers into the Assembly complex to sit, the 22 lawmakers, led by the newly-elected speaker, Titus Abua, were prevented from gaining access into the complex.
In view of this action, the PDP lawmakers in raising alarm over the dangers of this action on the forthcoming general election in 2019, said, “With a sad and heavy heart, we are constrained to draw the attention of all Nigerians and the global community, including the United Nations, to the increasingly autocratic, grossly anti-democratic and historically anti-people antics of the APC Federal Government as it embarks on a desperate march towards the 2019 general elections.
“Indications are emerging that this administration is walking in the same grim path of the forbidding regime of late General Sani Abacha and the outright dictatorship that overthrew the democratic Shehu Shagari administration.”
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