APC Wants Jonathan Impeached; Says Nigeria Faces Imminent Collapse …Presidency Alleges Treason

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the National Assembly to rise beyond partisanship and save Nigeria from imminent collapse by immediately kick-starting the process of impeaching President Goodluck Jonathan for gross misconduct.

In a statement in Lagos, yesterday, by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said it was issuing the call with a high sense of responsibility and the strong belief that the impeachment of the President was a legitimate, constitutional option available to the National Assembly not only to protect the nation’s democracy but also to ensure the country’s unity.

According to the statement, “our country is drifting dangerously and our people are divided now perhaps more than at any other point in our history, with the exception of the Civil War period. There is a total failure of leadership, even as insecurity, unprecedented corruption, palpable impunity, massive unemployment and hunger stalk the land.

“Since the raison d’etre of any government is the security and welfare of the citizenry, and the present administration has failed to live up to the justification of its existence, there can be no other definition of gross misconduct than that. “Therefore, the time has come for the head of that government, on whose desk the buck stops, to be removed through the provisions stipulated in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This is the patriotic thing to do,” it said.

APC warned that if the National Assembly fails to act and do so very fast, it will share with the clueless and feckless Jonathan Administration the eternal blame for bringing to naught the hard work of the nation’s heroes past and for crashing and dashing the hopes of millions of Nigerians, especially the youth who are the leaders of tomorrow.”

The party said it was necessary for anyone who may say the call for the impeachment of President Jonathan is outlandish to remember that all it takes to torpedo this democracy was for “this increasingly-paranoid government to get a pliant Judge to put a judicial stamp on just one of its litany of illegalities, thus setting the country ablaze,” adding:  “There are many such Judges as we can see by some recent events, despite our warnings that the efforts of the current CJN to clean up the judiciary must not be sabotaged by a few pliant Judges.”

In its reaction, the  Presidency has warned the All Progressives Congress (APC) to be ready to face the  consequences of treason.

A statement signed by the President Goodluck Jonathan’s Special Adviser, Reuben Abati,  read thus: “We have noted with utter disdain, the reckless and  irresponsible call by the APC on Sunday for the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against President Goodluck Jonathan.  Ordinarily, we would not have  dignified Alhaji Lai Mohammed’s latest vituperations in the service of his paymasters with a response, but we thought it necessary to warn that the Federal Government will not standby idly and let the nation be plunged into unnecessary crises and political instability because of the desperation and apparent readiness of the APC spokesman and his gang of power-seeking desperadoes to sacrifice the well-being of the country on the altar of their selfish personal ambitions”.

“The Presidency totally condemns the decision by Alhaji Mohammed and his party to move further beyond the bounds of honourable and acceptable political conduct with the senseless call for the impeachment of a President who continues to sincerely devote himself to the discharge of the sacred mandate freely given to him by Nigerians”, the statement added.

According to Abati, “the APC, which remains a minority party with doubtful credentials in the National Assembly, knows fully well that its attempt to hector and blackmail a Parliament dominated by loyal members of the President’s party, the PDP, into an impeachment process, will come to nothing. But it has cavalierly embarked on this outrageous gambit, with scant regard for peace, order, security and political stability in the country, in furtherance of its dastardly and heinous strategy of over-heating the polity and working to cause public disaffection against the Jonathan Presidency with lies, false accusations and unjustifiable indictments ahead of the 2015 general elections.”

“The emptiness and hollowness of the APC’s call for President Jonathan’s impeachment will be obvious to all objective and discerning Nigerians who read through the statement issued by Alhaji Mohammed today. It was long on self-serving rhetoric and falsehoods, but lacked a single clearly defined charge on the basis of which any plausible impeachment proceedings against the President can be initiated”, he added.

Abati said “All that the APC could offer in justification of its absurd and hare-brained impeachment call was a rehash of its well-worn litany of baseless accusations against the President, including some for which culpability should be laid squarely at the doorsteps of its own leaders and some of their new friends”.

The Presidency, according to Abati statement  also considers it utterly deplorable that the APC has, in its Machiavellian desperation to seize control of the Federal Government, recklessly assailed the integrity and honour of the Nigerian Judiciary in a callous attempt to  pre-empt the outcome of the  case legitimately brought against it by some of its new friends by the PDP.

“Alhaji Mohammed’s unscrupulous effort to drag the nation’s judiciary into its murky political warfare and his readiness to intimidate and blackmail members of the bench so as to secure a favourable outcome for his party in the pending case clearly shows that nothing is beyond the pale for him and the APC in pursuit of their quest for power, he added.

Rivers State Deputy Governor, Engr Tele Ikuru (right) with Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Downstream, Hon. Dakuku Peterside (3rd left), Chairman, Rivers State Caucus, National Assembly, Rep Honourable Asita (middle) and member representing Etche/Omuma Federal Constituency, Hon. Ogbonna Nwuke (2nd left), during the inauguration of the Save Rivers Forum, in Eleme, yesterday.