‘Impeachment threat not strange’

• House Speaker Aminu Tambuwal

Since the threat by the House of Representatives to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan, if he fails to ensure 100 per cent implementation of the budget by September, the political landscape has not been the same. To lawyers, there is nothing wrong with the threat, but they advised the lawmakers to only insist that the President obeys extant laws. Adebisi Onanuga, Eric Ikhilae and Joseph Jibueze report

The threat by the House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against the President by September has shifted focus from many other pressing matters. The Presidency and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are busy managing the fall-out of the threat.
Expectedly, public opinion varies on the lawmakers’ move. Some analysts believe that the lawmakers are justified to try and whip the president into line, if he is derailing, but others think that they are also guilty of the allegations of arbitrariness and abuse of public trust levelled against the Executive.
The House Minority Leader, Femi Gbajabiamila, who raised the impeachment issue, had noted that, chief among the President’s many constitutional breaches, was his alleged disdainful treatment of the Appropriation Act.
“The President, by failing to implement the budget as passed by this honourable House, violated the 1999 Constitution and is, therefore, liable to be impeached under section 143 of the 1999 Constitution. 
“With great trepidation, I must confess that I like the President. He is a fine gentleman, but I like my people more; and, because of this, it’s about time, Mr Speaker, that we do what is right and best for our country. So, I want to hereby submit that, come September, we will begin to invoke and draw up articles of impeachment of Mr President,” Gbajabiamila said.
To those who share this position, the lawmakers are in order, in view of the fact that aside its inability to implement the budget as passed, the government has consistently acted as if it is not responsible to Nigerians. This they said is reflected in its policies and programmes, which rather than ameliorate the people’s suffering, have added to their pains. 
They pointed to the increasing level of insecurity and the government’s recent decision to compel fresh graduates to undertake their youth service in crisis-prone states, despite the risk to their lives; inadequate power supply; rising unemployment; decaying infrastructure in the face of huge state’s revenue; and state’s seemingly helplessness in the face of mounting corruption, among others.
Some have argued that the President ought to have been shown the way out long ago, had the lawmakers heeded the call of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) last January in the wake of what many described as a “callous increase in petroleum prices” and the crisis it later generated. 
The NBA, led by Joseph Daudu (SAN), in describing the fuel price increase as wicked observed  that the “government took advantage of its people’s distress arising from the Christmas bombings and killings by the Boko Haram terrorists and insensitively caused the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (a creature of statute) to announce the withdrawal of petroleum subsidy.
“If government should apply half the vigour with which it has pursued the issue of the removal of subsidy to the eradication of corruption at all arms of government and in the society in general, then trillions of naira would be freed for developmental projects,” it said.
Other proponents of impeachment argued that it was within the power of the lawmakers to ignite the impeachment process as stipulated in Section 143 of the Constitution, having been satisfied that the President has committed acts amounting gross misconduct. 
To them, President Jonathan, who on most occasions, had attributed his emergence to some celestial powers as against the will of the people, has consistently carried on as if his loyalty is to some gods somewhere and not the Nigerian people, on whose behalf he holds power and exercises state’s authorities.
They argued that having failed to properly exercise state powers and respect the laws passed by the people’s representatives in a democracy, the lawmakers reserved the powers to check the President’s perceived excesses via an impeachment process.
On the flip side, however, is the argument that the House of Reps, seen by the people as a group of individuals not guided by patriotism and service, but by the urge for self aggrandisement, cannot be trusted to lead the way in the fight for the rule of law and constitutionalism.
To them, the House of Reps is propelled by an ulterior motive. They cited the insinuation that the crisis was partially stoked by anger over the refusal of the Executive to give bank guarantees that would have allowed members collect their third quarter recurrent allocation before proceeding on holidays last Thursday.
This development, they said, further added to the animosity generated by the government’s seemingly selective implementation of the House’s report on the fuel subsidy fraud; its perceived role in the allegation of bribe acceptance against the then Chair,  Subsidy Probe Committee, Farouk Lawan and the  Presidency’s reinstatement of Ms Arumah Oteh as director-general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), despite the House’s recommendation to the contrary.
Those against impeachment argued that the action of the House was not appropriate at this period when the nation was going through challenges, including air crash, terrorist onslaughts, tanker explosions, fire disaster and destructive floods, which had claimed many lives and destroyed property worth billions of naira.
They wondered why the House failed to inform Nigerians what effort it had made to extract from the Executive what was responsible for the alleged poor performance of the budget. They queried the rationale behind the House’s resort to impeachment when the 2012 budget was signed into law in mid-April, a delay resulting from institutional and bureaucratic  challenges  allegedly created by the  National Assembly.
To them, it will be a disservice to the people should  the government embark on a disbursement-spree to attain a high percentage statistical performance of the budget without ensuring that strict financial checks were applied as required by the Public Procurement Act.
Be that as it may, it should be noted that the service of a notice of impeachment on the President does not amount to impeachment. By design, impeachment is a complex series of steps and procedures undertaken by the legislature which affords an indicted public officer the opportunity of stating his case and defending his position.
To former NBA President, Wole Olanipekun, Afolabi Fashanu and Jibrin Okutepa (Senior Advocates)  and Dr. Charles Nwachukwu, there is nothing unusual in calling the President to account to the people how he is managing their affairs. The concept of checks and balances and the principle of separation of powers exist to check excesses of all arms of government.
They argued that it was within the democratic norm for the House to have initially invited the President to explain issues relating to insecurity and, subsequently, query his execution of the budget. 
Olanipekun, in a lecture entitled: Challenges to governance in emerging democracies, argued that accountability was essential for democracy to thrive, contending that “a necessary incident and ingredient of accountability is information.”
Citing the “State of the Union Address” in the United States, “Queen Speech” in the United Kingdom, among others, as instances where the leader of government is required, as a tradition, to provide information about activities of government, Olanipekun faulted the fuss generated by the House’s invitation to the Presidency to address it on a pressing national issue.
“If we were to make progress on the path of good governance, we must realise that budgets and budget implementation are core aspects of accountability. To this end, I will advocate the promulgation of a Budget Implementation Act or the amendment of the Constitution to introduce provisions making full and strict implementation of the budget mandatory,” Olanipekun said.
Fashanu argued that under the principle of separation of powers, the Legislature can act as a check against the arbitrariness of the Executive.  
 “So, it follows, therefore, that once appropriation is made, the Executive is obliged to show how far it has gone with the approved budget. Even in ordinary financial transactions, you would do what is called retirement. That is, after spending some funds allocated to you, you would retire the funds; you would go back to say ‘this is how I spent the money that was allocated to me’.  So, it is the same principle that extends to budget.
However, it is not sufficient for the House, for this singular reason, to serve impeachment notice on Mr President except there are other apparent impeachable offences. It should be remembered that the ministers are there. What have they individually or collectively done to make the budget work?
“So, this issue of budget performance is not sufficient on its own for them to say they want to serve impeachment notice on Mr President. I will, therefore, urge the House to thread softly on the issue.
Okutepa said: “Budget is passed as an Appropriation Act.  If the Reps are sure that the President is breaching the Appropriation Act, then they will be correct to draft articles of impeachment.
“The President will then have the opportunity to defend his action. The threat of an impeachment is part of democratic norms. It is also within the constitutional rights of the House.There is nothing wrong with it.”
Nwachukwu argued that, despite the condemnation of the House of Reps’ threat to impeach the President, there was nothing unusual about the lawmakers’ intention. 
“I think my only problem is that it will heighten the crises in the country should they impeach him. It is not that they are wrong.  Impeachment procedure is contained in the Constitution to be deployed when necessary. 
“So, if the lawmakers feel the man has breached the law, and was acting outside what the law provides, he should be told the truth. But I will advise they tolerate his excesses in the interest of national peace.The man has not actually done well enough,” he said. by jumatoo