Still on the $496m saga (2)

BY far more ridiculous is the contention that the President’s action is not unconstitutional. For those who are not lawyers amongst the exponents of this otherwise vile and jaundiced view, they need sympathy rather than condemnation.

However, for those who are lawyers with some of them Professors of Law and Senior Advocates, it is altogether a different ball game. It is a pity that they had regrettably allowed their views to be guided by considerations other than law at a time as this when the nation needs colourless display by them of their undoubtedly rich legal knowledge in a serious issue of national concern and dimension.

These same persons are undoubtedly familiar with the provision of S.143 of the Constitution and its various subsections and their implications, collectively or otherwise. Or are they pretending not to know of that section of the constitution? While subsection (2) provides that gross misconduct on the part of a President is a ground to proceed against him by impeachment, subsection (11) in defining what amounts to “gross misconduct” simply states it is what in the opinion of NASS is “gross misconduct.” In other words, applying a subjective rather than an objective test, an unconstitutional act of a President becomes a gross misconduct because, in its opinion, NASS says it is so.

Even by far more salutary in the foregoing regard is the fact that under subsection (10) impeachment proceedings and/or their outcome are not subject to judicial intervention/inquisition. The more reason the nation’s Chief Executive must be careful and well guided in the manner he carries on office. It is not after he has arrogantly and willfully committed constitutional infractions deserving of impeachment measure that political jobbers acting as members of a motley assembly will go to town, as rabble rousers, with expression of sentiments of all kinds, ranging from the ridiculous to the most absurd. This country belongs to all of us – politicians and non-politicians alike and we will not allow politicians, for their narrow and misguided interests which are transient, to destroy her for the rest of us.

As an adjunct to the point, those who believe, albeit wrongly, that the President did not foul the constitution are however quick to pull the wool across the faces of the rest of us by their further but hollow contention that the President having subsequently written to NASS for approval (a case of shutting the stable after the horse had bolted), he was home and dry. I’m afraid, such window dressing makes no difference to any constitutional breach or infraction. So, this fourth reason is as nebulous as any of the others before it.

1. each time I turn this reason over in my mind, what grips me is outrage. It simply amounts to carrying politics too far and to the realm of the ridicule for anyone, least of all those who ought to know better, to claim that the distinguished Senator was not sent to Abuja to move a motion for impeachment of the President. If he was not sent to Abuja to move such a motion, if and when circumstances call for it, who therefore are those amongst the Senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria specially sent there for that purpose and who are those not sent there for that purpose?

Unarguably, the distinguished Senator, like other distinguished Senators, including the other two of Edo State extraction, were sent to and are in the National Assembly mainly for business of law making and anything necessarily incidental thereto. One of such things incidental to his main business of law making is to check, if and when occasion so demands, the excesses of public officers, including the President, for which adequate provisions are made in our organic law.

It is in the discharge of such constitutional function, both qua a Senator and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Accounts that he moved the motion in question. But for the fact that it remains an uncomfortable trademark of our politicians to mar legal issues with political considerations, sometimes to the very ridiculous pedestal, where therefore lies the bogus accusation that he was not sent to Abuja to move such motion? What is even more, this is a matter of national dimension and not one of Edo locality, so what then is the roof we are bringing down in our jaundiced political inclinations? What the above analysis point to is that this reason does not equally fly. It must therefore be discountenanced like all others before it.

More importantly, none of those reasons/points raised against the Senator finds coverage under any provision of our constitution. Apart from their individual weaknesses as I’ve exposed above, that is also a common weak thread which runs through them all like a spider’s web. To that extent, therefore, they remain not only the personal opinions of those who had flaunted them but are clearly otiose. They are accordingly irrelevant.

In my considered opinion, in this matter the distinguished Senator, politics aside, very well acquitted himself in the brief he set for himself and which forms an integral part of his functions as a Federal legislator and in doing so, he demonstrated class and exemplary courage. He stood to be counted in circumstances in which many in his situation would have simply chickened out.

In a matter of this nature in which someone has nobly acquitted himself but same nevertheless fails to pass through the crucible unreasonably set forth by political opponents and their supporters (both guided and unguided) for no reason other than political and partisan appeals, the best and most honourable course open to the opposing side is to simply maintain dignified silence. Such is the option best required to be towed in that situation rather than spewing the ridiculous as reasons to back up otherwise indefensible criticisms. Must we reduce every conceivable thing to politics? Are we helping ourselves and the nation by so doing?

In answering the question which I had posed above and for which I had suspended proffering an answer until examining all the points raised against the Senator, it is simply that the Senator was home and dry when he called for the invocation of S.143 of the Constitution against the President. The President is under the Constitution and NOT above it as the partisan attitude of some of those calling for the Senator’s head seem to suggest. Available facts dictated no less than moving of a motion of the kind.

In the instant case, however, while impeachment may not be resorted to, not because no impeachable breach had been committed but only for the reason of the times we are in as a nation, especially with the 2019 general elections beckoning on us, I nevertheless commend distinguished Senator Matthew Urhoghide for the uncommon and uncanny  brilliance, wisdom and exemplary courage demonstrated by him as well as for his quest in siding with need for adherence by all, without exception, to our laws, especially the constitution.

Any nation with penchant for undermining its laws and in particular which looks on while politicians have a field day making of them (the laws) sacrificial lambs at the altar of political expediency, perishes sooner than one can imagine. Politics and political players, especially those who are fortunate to hold political offices that are time bound, are variables but the nation State is constant and therefore a recurring decimal which denotes its permanence like the northern star.

The choice is ours whether to allow the nation’s interests to be our paramount concern or those of the politicians who are self serving and with greater tendencies to see the nation go extinct provided they achieve their ambitions which, for the most part, are vaulting and inordinate. As they say, a man is to lay on his bed the way he has made it and not otherwise.

 

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