Why impeachment move against Buhari cannot succeed —Banjo

Lanre Banjo, former governorship candidate and member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), speaks on the impeachment move by opposition lawmakers in the National Assembly on President Muhammadu Buhari, insecurity and preparations for 2023 general election.

What are your views on insecurity in the country?

The level of insecurity in this country is pathetic; it does not show that we have rulers not to talk of leaders. The country cannot even boast of being ruled by a recruit army man let alone a general.  Perhaps this General does not merit the rank. My people in Borno cannot sleep with their two eyes closed and the entire country is under siege, yet the president is not addressing us.  I pray those who threatened to kidnap him could at least attempt their threat.  Hopefully his immediate family members would feel what the rest of us are feeling. The service chiefs are helpless because they know that the government does not want the killings stopped.

What do you make of the move by the Senate to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari?

The constitution of Nigeria empowers the National Assembly to remove the president when it considers the president’s conduct to be gross misconduct.  Gross misconduct means a grave violation or breach of the provisions of the constitution or as defined by the National Assembly. Buhari has been in the office for over seven years and several acts constituting gross misconduct have been committed, but there has been no majority in the National Assembly who are patriotic enough to move a motion to impeach him.  Opposition is not strong enough and members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) consider the party first before the future and safety of the citizens. While I strongly believe that something needs to be done even if he is leaving the office tomorrow, I know such a move would be frustrated using all sorts of gimmick and prevaricated reasons.  The Senate President may extend their recess until next year when elections would be few months away. Would the Chief Justice put the country over the narrow interest of the president? Senator Smart Adeyemi, who has been crying in the hallowed chamber, was not given a ticket to return to send a strong signal to other patriots.  Unfortunately, they made an electoral law that stripped them of their rights to contest on another platform once they lose a ticket of their party.  So, I think it is a journey to nowhere. What prevented them from embarking on impeachment process before now, especially when he issued an executive order to allow other African countries to enter Nigeria without visa? When he dangerously ordered Boko Haram and bandit members to be admitted into the Nigerian Army, what were they looking at?  Do the APC members of National Assembly who may not support the impeachment process, if engaged prior to this time, see themselves as residing in an unsecured Nigeria or secured political party?

Nigerians continue to face economic hardship, what do you make of the economic policies of the present administration?

Buhari has no good economic team, former president Olusegun Obasanjo opined that Buhari knows nothing about economy and he has not proved Obasanjo wrong with the situation of the nation’s economy. The Nigerian civil war witnessed three Budgets with the first one introduced on October 19, 1967.  The three budgets were governed and underlaid by the same fundamental objectives and basic principles.  The objectives were to win the war and the peace that followed.  The three principles were to economize Nigerian financial resources, raise additional revenue, and save our foreign exchange reserve from being run down to a dangerous level, thereby avoiding balance of payments difficulties, and preserving the strength of our Nigerian pound.  The economic team was led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, of blessed memory, who was the Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council and Federal Commissioner for Finance.  During the war, it was envisaged that the country would require for rehabilitation, reconstruction and development, a record capital investment of the order of 1,500,000,000 pound from both the public and private sectors, within five years after the war.  Chief Awolowo led Ministry of Finance planned accordingly.   The financing of the Nigerian civil war should, therefore, be understood not just as connoting the defraying of the expenses of the immediate, narrow, negative object of winning the war alone, but as embracing the conservation of our financial health of our nation.  This was the plan, it was pursued with draconic firmness and attained. The war was prosecuted without borrowing a penny. Unlike, people in Buhari’s administration, who don’t care about out worth and the strength of Naira.  All they do is borrow, borrow and borrow for posterity to pay.

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