Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, and human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, have supported the call by PDP senators for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari. The duo spoke at an interactive session on Tuesday organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Abeokuta Club. The PDP senators, who were joined by some of their APC colleagues, as well as their counterparts in the House of Representatives, had issued a six-week ultimatum to the president to find a solution to the insecurity plaguing the country or be impeached. The opposition party’s lawmakers had staged a walk-out from the senate chamber last week, after Ahmad Lawan, the Senate President, blocked moves to table the impeachment during plenary. Elisha Abbo, an APC senator, supported the impeachment move against Mr Buhari. The lawmaker who represents Adamawa North Senatorial District said the president had failed in his primary duty of securing the nation and its people. Adamu Bulkachuwa, another APC senator representing Bauchi North, also backed the impeachment plan citing the worsening insecurity in the country.
Tuesday’s interactive session was moderated by Mr Soyinka, a professor of Comparative Literature. The panellists, comprising Mr Falana; Registrar of the Joint Administration and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Is-haq Oloyede; a lawyer and Chartered Accountant, Gbenga Adeoye; Ogoooluwa Bankole; and Sunday Oduntan discussed the topic ‘Good governance or misgovernance: The contract called democracy’. Mr Soyinka noted that the president should be impeached because he had breached the contract of democracy.
“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,” he said.
“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.
Mr Soyinka argued that the president had also insisted on choosing his successor, a path which he described as breaching contract democracy.
“I am a moderator here today,” he continued.
“If I want to go to the toilet and I will be away for a few minutes and I want to appoint somebody in my place, I am likely to look for somebody who moderates like I do, someone who shares principles with my moderation, the same methodology and perhaps the same position, somebody whom I believe will moderate effectively as I have tried to do.
“In any democracy, any president, any prime minister or whatever is entitled to one vote. We are not saying we should disenfranchise somebody because they are on top of governance.”
Mr Soyinka berated the state governors who reportedly visited Mr Buhari to request a successor. Mr Falana also criticised the president for seeking permission from the governors to choose his successor.
“As a follow-up, what the president did say is that ‘allow me to choose my successor because in your states you have appointed your successors without any interference,’” Mr Falana said.
In his contribution, Mr Oloyede urged Nigerians to also berate the state governments for their involvement in the failure of governance.
“What have we entrusted to the state that has not failed? They destroyed our public primary schools. Primary education is supposed to be at the residual level that the state and local government should take care of. How many of us are ready to send our children to public schools?
“The state destroyed all these primary schools. Where are the health centres built? Where are the health clinics in the states?”
