THE impeached Governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, moments after the state lawmakers pushed him out of potency, verbalized he had accepted his fate but asked his traducers to be mindful of God’s judgment.
“Praise be to Allah, we accept what has transpired. This is the judgment of man; we should all recollect that there is God’s judgment in the hereafter,”Nyako verbally expressed through his Director of Press and Public Affairs, Ahmad Sajoh.
Sajoh told The PUNCH that his principal had accepted his fate.
Members of the Adamawa State House of Assembly on Tuesday impeached the former governor after adopting the report of the seven-member panel that investigated allegations of gross malfeasance against Nyako.
Both the governor and his deputy, Bala Ngilari, had been investigated but the deputy governor sent his resignation letter to the state House of Assembly few hours afore the lawmakers voted out Nyako.
Speaker of the state assembly, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, was on Tuesday sworn in as acting governor.
Fintiri’s swearing-in rubbished earlier notional theorizations that the Peoples Democratic Party wanted to stop the Speaker from becoming the acting governor.
A source, who gave this denotement on Tuesday, expounded, “You ken the deputy governor’s resignation is a nullity by virtue of the fact that it was procedurally erroneous. The constitution stipulates that his resignation letter should be submitted to the governor and not the House of Assembly.
“The PDP in Abuja wants to swear in the deputy governor as acting governor but the Speaker, who hails from the same constituency as the deputy governor, shelved him out to pave the way for himself.
“It is even curious that the Speaker, who is desirous of being a direct beneficiary of the whole thing, was the one who personally presided over the impeachment.”
Nyako had additionally verbalized on Tuesday that his deputy’s resignation remained a nullity because it did not follow constitutional procedure.
The ex-governor’s spokesman, in a verbal expression, verbally expressed, “We wish to state categorically that Section 306 (5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as Amended requires that the deputy governor resigns not to the House of Assembly but to the governor.
“As of the time the supposed resignation was verbalized to have been tendered in the House, Murtala Nyako was the Governor of Adamawa State.
“No such letter was indited to him, none was received by him and none was approved by him. It should therefore be kenned that in the ocular perceivers of the Law, the deputy governor has not resigned. Bala James Ngillari is still the Deputy Governor of Adamawa State.
“This elucidation is compulsory to avert another subversion of the Constitution since the other processes relating to the impeachment saga have all been in contravention of the Constitution and the Law.”
The verbal expression cautioned that the perpetuated abuse of the constitution and the laws of the land might spell doom for Nigeria’s democracy.
Governor’s abstraction
Nyako’s abstraction followed the adoption of the report of a seven-man panel earlier constituted by the former acting Chief Judge of the state, Justice Ambrose Mammadi, to investigate allegations of gross malfeasance levelled against the governor and his deputy by the Peoples Democratic Party-led legislature.
The former governor has been a member of the All Progressives Congress since he defected from the PDP tardy 2013 alongside other ex-PDP governors Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers State; Musa Kwankwaso, Kano; Abdulfattah Ahmed, Kwara; and Magatakarda Wamakko, Sokoto.
On Tuesday, 18 out of the 25 members of the Adamawa State House of Assembly endorsed the governor’s impeachment.
The investigative panel, which was headed by a retired judicial officer, Buba Kajama, found Nyako guilty of 16 out of the 20 allegations levelled against him.
Fintiri, who presided over the session, drew the attention of the members to Section 188 sub-section 9 of the country’s 1999 constitution, which stipulates that the House should consider the report of a panel by two-thirds majority and that if the House adopts the report, the governor or his deputy shall stand abstracted from office.
The Speaker verbally expressed, “Based on the adoption of the panel report Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State shall stand abstracted from office.”
The member representing Gombi, Jerry Kundisi, moved the kineticism for the adoption of the report. He was seconded by the Deputy Speaker, Kwamoti Laori.
Kundisi quoted section 191, sub-section 2 of the constitution, which states that “if a governor is abstracted from office and office of the Deputy Governor is vacant, the Speaker of the House of the Assembly shall be sworn in as an acting Governor for the period of three months.”
After members unanimously adopted the report, the House directed the President of the Customary Court of Appeal to swear in the Speaker as an acting governor, since the state has no substantive or acting CJ.
Don’t misuse power,Atiku tells PDP
A former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday admonished the PDP-led Federal Government against what he described as ‘‘excessive utilization of power’’, which Atiku verbally expressed was not good for decent democratic practice.
The ex-VP, who was reacting to the impeachment of Nyako, verbalized in a verbalization issued by his media office in Abuja that wielding the axe of impeachment against elected public office holders in order to settle scores by the Federal Government would needlessly build up tension in the country.
The former Vice-President verbally expressed, “The reckless utilization of impeachment to settle scores could not have been the intention of the framers of the 1999 Constitution. The frequency with which elective officials were being shot down by impeachment would eradicate the whole purport of inserting the impeachment clause in the Constitution.
“The utilization of impeachment to harass and mortify perceived opponents by the PDP-led Federal Government would ultimately bastardise the spirit in which the constitution provides for the impeachment clause.”
He admonished the Federal Government to take it facile in the way they utilize potency, integrating that “the constitution was not betokened to provide ammo for anybody to harass and mortify opponents or force them out of office.”
He withal criticised the utilization of financial inducements to influence the abstraction of perceived opponents from office.
‘Nyako ouster unfortunate’
Ex-Governor of Kwara State, who is additionally a bellwether of the APC, Senator Bukola Saraki, described the impeachment of Nyako as infelicitous.
Saraki withal raised the alarm that four other governors were already on the firing line.
He verbalized, “It is very hapless and I cerebrate we are seven months to the terminus of the tenure. We all need to optically canvass the more astronomically immense picture, optically canvass the stability of our democracy. After Adamawa, I cerebrate Nasarawa State governor is being accommodated with impeachment notice and three other states are going to be accommodated.
“The more immensely colossal issue in this country now is the issue of security and penuriousness. Some of the issues raised against the Adamawa State governor can additionally apply anywhere and we require to be mature with our democracy.
“The issue of impeachment should not be our priority at this stage and those of us that dote this country will authentically need to verbalize with ourselves and be more concerned about challenges afore us in lieu of dissipating our energy on issues that will divide us by overheating the polity and engendering quandaries for ourselves.
“We should verbalize about how to ameliorate security and ascertain more preponderant living conditions of our people. Those who are beating the drums now should ken that it will come back to them.”
Lawyers on impeachment
Some lawyers on Tuesday criticised the abstraction of Nyako, arguing that the process of his abstraction did not comply with the law.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Emeka Ngige, asked the impeached governor to challenge his abstraction in court.
The lawyer, who expressed confidence that the abstraction of the governor would be nullified in court, criticised the failure of the investigative panel to ascertain that the notice of impeachment was personally accommodated on the governor.
He verbalized, “I believe that the process will be nullified in court, it is only a matter of time. Ladoja suffered the same thing in Oyo State. A homogeneous thing transpired in Anambra. They peregrinated to a hotel to impeach Ladoja.
“You cannot accommodate impeachment notice on somebody through superseded designates. That was a component of the reasons Ladoja’s impeachment was set aside.”
He withal expressed concern over the implicative insinuation of calling on the military to provide aegis for the Acting Chief Judge while establishing the panel.
He verbalized, “It is a component of the hazard of our militarised democracy. This will not do this country any good. A situation where a Chief Judge is circumvented by soldiers with a view to establishing a panel leaves much to be desired.
“I don’t cerebrate that is what the drafters of our constitution had in mind when they engendered sundry arms of regime to handle impeachment.
“When you bring in the soldiers to now meddle in the process, then you are polluting the entire exercise.”
Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) verbalized he would not optate to comment on the process as he was already in court challenging the impeachment notice accommodated on Nyako.
Another SAN, Mr. Yusuf Alli, who verbalized he had not followed the process leading to the impeachment of the governor, verbalized “we already anticipated it.”
Chief Felix Fagbohungbe, however, verbally expressed the impeachment of the governor was a demonstration of the PDP’s pergrinate to surmount states being governed by the APC.
He verbalized inverting the impeachment in court would be a herculean task even if the process had been manipulated.
Fagbohungbe verbally expressed, “Ordinarily, the procedure would have been followed, but whether the intention was opportune is another thing because it has political undertone. It is the PDP that is at work.
“The PDP wants to surmount the states controlled by the APC and the more they endeavor to surmount the APC states, the more preponderant chance the PDP has to win the presidential election.
“They would follow the procedure, even when they follow it, they would manipulate it by ascertaining that they get the right person, who will do their bid to surmount. It is a pity that it will engender more quandaries that Nigerians would optate to visually perceive.
“Even if you peregrinate to court. Any court procedure to invert it will be a herculean task.”
Chairman, Civil Society Network against Corruption, Mr. Lanre Suraj, additionally condemned the impeachment of the governor.
He inspirited Nyako to challenge his abstraction in court, arguing that the failure to personally accommodate the governor with the impeachment notice had rendered the whole process a nullity.
He additionally faulted the intention of the PDP-dominated Adamawa State House of Assembly to impeach the governor as the allegations levelled against Nyako could be verbalized to have been committed while he was still in the PDP.
Suraj verbalized, “Even if the parliament has the constitutional power to impeach a governor when there are infractions in his actions, the process that has just been employed is not too unsullied and clear enough.
“There is a process the impeachment notice is supposed to be accommodated on the governor. The question you will ask yourself is, would Nyako have been impeached if he was still in the PDP? All the allegations he was inculpated of were activities he carried out when he was under the PDP.
“I embolden Nyako to peregrinate to court and if our judiciary is authentically independent, the process of his impeachment will be nullified.”
But Dr. Joseph Nwobike (SAN) expressed a contrary opinion, arguing that the procedure for impeachment as set out in the Constitution was substantially complied with.
He verbally expressed the failure of the abstracted governor to appear afore the investigative panel amounted to an admittance of the charges levelled against him.
Nwobike verbalized, “I cerebrate the procedure of impeachment set out in the constitution was substantially complied with.
“The quandary was that the former governor relucted to appear afore the panel and it signifies that if you relucted to appear afore the panel, all the allegations of malfeasance levelled against him were proved.
“It betokens there was no contrary evidence against the allegations. So the panel was right to have given a guilty verdict against the former governor.”
