Soyinka, Falana: Senators’ plan to impeach Buhari, good move

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, and a Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, have described as a good move, the planned impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari by the opposition senators, especially those elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over the President’s failure to end the rising insecurity in the country.

Some opposition senators had given Buhari a six weeks ultimatum to end insecurity or be impeached.

Speaking on the development, Soyinka and Falana said Buhari has failed in his promises made to Nigerians, hence the need to impeach the President.

They both spoke on Tuesday in an interactive session organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Abeokuta Club in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

Soyinka was the Moderator of the interactive session, which has Falana, the Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede; a  lawyer and Chartered Accountant, Gbenga Adeoye; a businessman in the state, Ogo-Oluwa Bankole; and the spokesman of the Electricity Distribution Companies, Sunday Oduntan; as panelists.

The event was held with the theme, ‘Good Governance or Mis-governance: The Contract called Democracy’.

Soyinka said President Buhari should be impeached because he has breached the contract of democracy.

He said: “Good governance or misgovernance, the contract called Democracy, a democracy indicates a contract that is why the candidate puts on a manifesto on the basis of that manifesto or they either be accepted or rejected.

“Very often, the grounds for breach of contract, I think we all agree is misgovernance, and one of the ways of breaking this kind of contract we know even before the duration of a contract is known as impeachment.

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“And reason we will go by some legislators to impeach the President who is the head of government.

“In fact, one cleric has gone even further, he believes that the impeachment should take place not in the legislative home but in the bush with the kidnappers and he appealed to the kidnappers to quicken the process by impeaching the president and take him away and some of his aides and one or two governors.”

Soyinka further stated that the decision of the President to choose his successor was “not democracy and that is not a respect of contract with the people of democracy.”

In his remarks, Falana corroborated the submission of Soyinka on the need to stop abuse of a democratic process.

The Human rights lawyer lamented the imposition of leaders on Nigerians just as he faulted Buhari for seeking permission from the governors to choose his successor.

On his part, Oloyede urged Nigerians not to focus on the faults of the federal government but concentrate on the state government’s involvement in the failure.

The JAMB Registrar, however, lamented the poor condition of education sector in the country, adding that the governments are responsible for the damage.

“Look at how long our universities have been closed now, five months, six months and somebody was telling me some people came from Ukraine and the National Assembly should look at them.

“What of those who are at home who did not go to Ukraine at all and they have not been going to school for five months but because the elites have sent their children to Ukraine and they are back now so, they must make it a national agenda and that is why everybody is talking about returnees from Ukraine what about those who did not go to Ukraine.”

The Star