SAN FRANCISCO, November 21, (THEWILL) – The Senate Minority Leader, Senator George Akume, has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of laying siege on the National Asssembly, describing the action as suicidal.
“For President Goodluck Jonathan, impunity has become a second nature. On Wednesday, the All Progressives Congress (APC) staged a ‘Salvation Rally’, deprecating the President’s many acts of impunity. The siege on the National Assembly on Thursday marks the latest addition to President Jonathan’s long litany of assaults on democracy,” Akume said in a statement issued in Abuja Friday.”
According to the Senator representing Benue State at the Senate, “The deployment of thousands of police and security personnel to barricade the gates of the National Assembly in their desperate attempt to prevent Speaker Aminu Tambuwal’s access to the House of Representatives over which he presides, is suicidal.”
“Mercilessly teargasing the Speaker, his colleagues, staff and visitors in and out of their hallowed chambers amounts to a travesty of the sanctity and a brazen desecration of the hallowed nature of the parliamentary institution. As a critical part of the tripod upon which constitutional democracy rests, the President’s assault on the parliament amounts to gross misconduct and a constitutional breach of the sacrosanct doctrine of the separation of powers.”
“Mr. President’s insistence on the unlawful removal of Speaker Tambuwal in spite of a court order for maintenance of the status quo is further violation of an extant, valid and subsisting order of a court of competent jurisdiction.”
Akume said “It is particularly sad that whereas, the Hon. Speaker patriotically responded to the President’s call to national duty by summoning his colleagues from recess to consider an executive request for an extension of emergency rule in the North East of Nigeria, the President had as his primary but private objective, the removal of Mr. Speaker by subterfuge and deceit.”
“This is yet another proof that combating the Boko Haram insurgency was not, has not been, is not and will likely never be President Jonathan’s priority. This is in spite of his government’s constitutional duty to secure the Nigerian State and her citizenry. Mr. President’s only priority, it seems, is to retain the title of Commander-in-Chief without doing the job the title entails! Is it any wonder that Mr. President declared a unilateral cease-fire and pulled out our military, only for the insurgents to deny it and proceed to capture more territory and slaughter more of our defenseless compatriots?”
“Is it any wonder that when our local hunters chased out the insurgents out of Mubi, the Nigerian security agents arrested the leader of the hunters for daring to blow open PDP’s grand design to allow Boko Haram seize more territory and make holding elections impossible in the North East where opinion polls reveal the President’s outright rejection.”
Akume lamented that the police excused their siege on the National Assembly on an alleged security report of imminent invasion of the National Assembly by thugs.
“ This claim is not only a laughable tissue of lies, but it was directly contradicted by clear television visual accounts which showed the police preventing the Speaker and other Honourable members of the House accompanying him from gaining entrance into their ordinary place of business.”
“Is it the Speaker or the Honourable members that have become thugs? Did the police share their information with the National Assembly leadership? Could they not identify the Speaker when he called out to them to open the gate?”
“The fact remains that by allowing Deputy Speaker Hon. Emeka Ihedioha access to the chambers and preventing Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, the police wanted to give the Speaker the Ekiti treatment where seven members of the House were selectively allowed to go into the Chambers and impeach the Speaker of the State House of Assembly.”
“Besides, the police account sharply conflicts with that of Dr. Doyin Okupe who claimed that the Inspector General of Police was merely implementing earlier court decisions, which held that defectors are no longer members of the parliament. He did not however explain why the implementation was selectively restrictive.”
“While the IGP withdrew the security of Hon. Tambuwal on grounds that he had lost membership of the House because he decamped from the PDP, he did not do the same to the Speaker of Ondo State House of Assembly and some members of the Assembly who decamped from Labour Party to the PDP.”
“As Parliamentary Opposition Leader and elder statesman, I am a major stakeholder in the Nigerian political enterprise. I will never stop advising Mr. President to look back at history. When he directed the police to withdraw the Speaker’s security details, I drew his attention to the Western regional Assembly parliamentary crisis in the First Republic, which led to a chain of reactions that brought our parliamentary democracy to a halt.”
“The crisis eventually precipitated into the Nigerian civil war. Here again, let me warn that your siege on the National Assembly is akin to a death wish. You are either inviting an impeachment from the same Parliament or inviting adventurists to throw out the bath water and the baby. Whatever your motive Mr. President, I appeal to you to spare Nigeria for future generations,” Akume said.
