I can’t stop thinking why some people would want to blow so much hot air, as Nigerians say in local parlance, for nothing. Yes, the House of Reps has the constitutional power to impeach Mr. President. It’s also expected to call the president to question for not implementing fully the budget or doing anything contrary to constitutional provision. However, the big question is: Does the House have the political will to attempt an impeachment?
I am not, in any way, trying to denigrate the House of Representatives or the National Assembly, as a whole. Far from it, as I have respect for the legislature and many of the federal lawmakers. My amusement is simply because there’s nothing whatsoever to show that the impeachment threat is anything to worry about.
I have not seen anything to show that the House of Representatives and, indeed, the National Assembly have fire in the belly to ever start an impeachment proceeding, let alone removing the president from office.
The House has not behaved, in deed and action, in such a way to suggest that it could actually look Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the face and dare them. Indeed, by its past actions and inactions, the National Assembly, as a larger body, has not lived up to its billing, as an institution, which should make the Presidency or the Executive to catch cold when it sneezes.
For the avoidance of doubt, this is not the first time a group of federal lawmakers or an arm of the National Assembly would humour Nigerians with impeachment threat to the president or pretending to beat the Presidency into line. Each time they did, it turned out that it was a move to draw attention to themselves and, perhaps, curry favour from the authorities.
I remember vividly when some senators, led by a controversial politician, vowed that then President Olusegun Obasanjo would be removed from office for constitution breaches. Some of us, who felt, at that time, that Obasanjo operated more like a military dictator than a civilian president, were excited. It turned out to be a huge joke.
There was tension, quite alright, with Nigerians thinking that the senators meant business. At the end, nothing happened. No impeachment proceeding was started. No feathers were ruffled. And the nations carried on, with Obasanjo doing things he was accused of with impunity and daringly so.
During Hon Ghali Umar Na’Abbah’s leadership of the House of Representatives, there was also talk about starting an impeachment proceeding against Obasanjo. As typical of the House, tempers rose.
It was as if the world was coming to an end. Eventually, the whole thing turned out to be a case of motion without movement. There was no impeachment. Also, during the Umar Yar’Adua government, the House issued impeachment threat, but nothing happened.
During the first amendment of the 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act, the National Assembly had vowed to make all federal legislators members of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of political parties. The talk then was that the lawmakers wanted to be a counter-force to the governors, who, through the Governors Forum, have become an irresistible force.
The lawmakers wanted to ensure balance of powers in the political parties, so that the governors would no longer have the monopoly of deciding those who would be candidates in elections. Even though the governors and political parties’ chieftains were rattled, before Nigerians knew what was happening, the lawmakers backed down.
The plan to enlarge the political parties’ NEC, to include lawmakers, was dropped. And the National Assembly carried on as if nothing ever happened.
Taking all these together, as well as other misfiring from the National Assembly, perhaps, only a few Nigerians would believe that federal lawmakers would assert their authority, properly exercise checks on the Presidency (executive), in the principle of checks and balance, and, therefore, give the country a true democracy, where the three arms of government function in a way that would not allow for excesses.
If senators threatened to impeach Obasanjo and nothing happened; if the House of Representatives also threatened Obasanjo as well as Yar’Adua and nothing happened; if the National Assembly threatened to clip the wings of governors, in political parties and it was not so, I do not think that anybody would take the House of Representatives seriously now.
Some people would want us to believe that representation has been made to the House to sheath the sword. I do not believe this. I suspect that some people are just setting up an alibi, so that when the House fails to carry out the threat it would look as if the intervention and pleading did the magic.
For the Presidency to say that the budget cannot be fully implemented by September shows that it’s ready to call the House bluff. Besides, it’s obvious that the House of Representatives cannot remove Jonathan from office, even if its members try. For Jonathan or any president to be removed from office, the Senate must be involved. Indeed, the two arms of the National Assembly must collectively establish that the president has committed impeachable offences.
A two-third majority of the Houses must vote for the impeachment proceeding to start. The two Houses must resolve, using two-third majority, to ask the Chief Justice of Nigeria to raise a panel that would investigate the allegations. When the panel submits its report and finding the president guilty, two-third majority of the two Houses must vote for the removal of the president from office.
It is therefore, obvious that if the House of Reps starts and concludes these processes alone, without the Senate doing the same, Jonathan would remain in office. This is what happened in the United States when the House of Representatives concluded the impeachment proceeding against then President Bill Clinton, over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
The US House of Reps impeached Clinton, but he remained in office because the Senate voted “No” to impeachment. In any case, I believe that the House would make a point, if it commences and concludes impeachment proceeding against Jonathan. Such a move would send a signal, to the effect that the country’s democracy is maturing.
Whenever the legislature begins to function as it should, the Presidency dares not run roughshod with the people. If only the lawmakers know the enormous power they have, they would not be behaving like orphans and timidly. The legislature is the fulcrum of government. It’s supposed to be the unsung hero.
Indeed, an institution that has the power to approve ministers’ names before the president could appoint them, an institution that has to approve nominees to federal agencies and parastatal corporations, an institution that must approve the budget before the president would spend money, an institution that would figuratively determine what the president does, is sure the most important. Such a body should be responsive, responsible and assertive.
I will only believe that we have a true democracy when the legislature makes the Executive to see itself as just one arm of government, instead of the ultimate institution in democracy. In a tight democracy, the Executive would sweat to get the House support. For United States President Barack Obama to get the Congress to approve his health care programme, for example, he sweated. It took pragmatic lobbying for him to get it.
In our case, the Executive gets whatever it wants by just appealing to the emotion of the legislature as well as using threat and intimidation. Any legislature that is intimidated by the Executive is not worth its name.
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