The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, has continued in his insistence that Dr Bukola Saraki must leave his position as the Senate President.
In an interview on Channels Televison’s Road map 2019, Oshiomhole said the Senate President had to step down from his seat as a matter of honour. He further threatened that if Senator Saraki does not step down he will be impeached.
“Saraki must vacate the position of senate president as a matter of honour,” the APC chairman said.
“If he does not choose the path of honour he will be democratically removed as the president of the Senate. I am emphasing logic and political morality plus law.”
Oshiomhole claimed that it was unacceptable in any democracy for a minority party to provide leadership to govern the majority.
His latest comments echo his assertion in a meeting with National assembly lawmakers of the APC in August, where he said Saraki had to be removed.
Saraki defected from the ruling APC to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in July stating that the decision was caused “by certain elements and forces within the APC” that their actions left he and his associates “disaffected and disenchanted”. Although Saraki lauded the unsuccessful efforts by Oshiomole to reconcile him back to the party, the Senate President and the APC party chairman have been at loggerheads after the defection with Oshiomole insisting he vacates his position as senate president.
Oshiomole noted in the interview that the extant provision in the constitution to impeach the Senate president involves “two-thirds of members” unlike the provision for the impeachment of Presidents, Vice presidents, Governors and Deputy Governors, which involves two-thirds of all the members”.
The APC national chairman said that since the wording of the provision in the constitution regarding impeachment didn’t include the word ‘all’ compared to that regarding the impeachment of the Presidents, Vice presidents, Governors and Deputy Governors, the 57 APC senators, less than two-thirds of the senate, were enough to impeach the senate president.
“When I say Saraki will be democratically removed, he will be lawfully removed. People say how? They choose to detain themselves with the assumption of the fact that we have 57 members means we cannot impeach the Senate President.”
“The issue before us is to allow a competent court to sit down and see whether it would have been the intention of the Constitution when it chooses to use the word ALL, all members for the purpose of presidents and others and use members for another purpose. Now, if the intention was the same, the wording will be the same.”
The former chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress harped on democracy being a superior law to any other law.
“It says that in a genuine democracy, the minority can continue to have their say, however loud, however militant. However, the majority must have their way. This is a law far more superior to whatever some lawmakers may put; that universal law which does not vary between nation-states.”
Oshiomole concluded that Senator Saraki had already defined his political grave to which he must be politically buried.
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