JONATHAN'S IMPEACHMENT: A SMOKESCREEN

As the impeachment saga began raging a few weeks ago, many commentators have begun to assess the performance of the president since he stopped acting as president out of necessity and became the real life president. Many have reached critical conclusions that either suggests the president is doing a fair job given his very good excuse and others that Dr. Goodluck Jonathan deserves more time. None of the commentaries thus far has been written in praise of the president.

Budget implementation, the bone of contention, is the grouse of the sponsor of the impeachment notice Hon. Gbajabiamila. According to him, the president has not fared well on the issue of implementing the 2012 Budget and as such should get the boot come September. The presidency on its part has reacted with figures and some more figures. It has also passed some of the buck back to the National Assembly and found a technical excuse that the budget was passed in April as reason for a failure in implementation.

It is possible that full budget implementation is not possible. That should never be an issue dear Hon. Gbajabiamila and cohorts. There are lots of other issues that should have been brought up as impeachable offences of the president that have been ignored by this partisan national assembly. The budget in itself represents not one of development but one of a redundant government that is bent on continuing the tradition of wanton spending. The recurrent expenditure at 71% is significantly larger than any meaningful impact allotted to capital projects can have. I wonder why it is now that the House of Representatives would cry foul over the budget and its implementation.

Under the watch of this president and his erudite supervising minister for the economy, monumental sums running into trillions of Naira was paid out to importers for un-imported fuel. This regime woke up one morning also and decided to inflict the nation with such untoward hardship as increasing their cost of living, a decision we have all learnt was bent on misleading the populace. That was an impeachable offence gone begging.

On Democracy Day, why is it even called that, our president singlehandedly usurped the powers the National Assembly by renaming a 50 year old institution better known as The University of Lagos after late Chief Moshood Abiola the winner of the real democracy day elections in Nigeria. That singular action was ignored by the national assembly. A few weeks later when members from the learned profession had begun to decry the misdeed, the president sent a bill to parliament. He had already put the cart before his horse. That was another impeachable offence.

The growing state of insecurity in Nigeria is not an impeachable offence everyone. It does not amount to gross misconduct for all intents and purposes. However, incompetence is not a tolerable reason to allow the president to remain in office. How does one explain leaving the country on foreign trips at the break of sectarian violence or terrorist attacks by the Boko Haram and their clones? Do Nigerians deserve not better leadership at a time when it is obvious that there is a scarcity of one everywhere?

This national assembly has been a failure! The oversight functions have not correctly carried out to fruitful conclusions. As though there is not enough to worry about in terms of executive incompetence and misconducts, the national assembly led by David Mark in the Senate has taken a line of strained neck mentality in that it cannot turn its attention to the activities of the executive. Partisanship is a weak word to describe such insistence on ignoring executive misrule. While the senate has been forgotten by the common Nigerian, the lower house has succeeded in ending all their work in one scandal after another.

Never has Nigeria needed genuine leadership than now and it is now, that it is at its lowest ebb. What sector has not failed? The ongoing Olympic games is a sorry story and paints a perfect picture of the Nigerian situation. Why on earth should Toriola be Nigeria’s only table tennis medal hopeful after competing in as many Olympics and failing to bag a medal? Toriola is good athlete no doubt, but something is wrong with the leadership that cannot produce better Toriolas, such that we must continue to rely on an old donkey. Just when will the leadership question in Nigeria be addressed?

It is not hard to conclude that there is more to the impeachment threat. We need no time machine to know that it will die a natural death. Many commentators agree that the slow implementation of the budget is affecting or delaying the largess accruing to lawmakers by way of constituency projects hence their discomfort. The personal interest that continues to override public interest is at the helm of failed leadership in Nigeria and sadly the reason the nation cannot make the progress it needs. The impeachment threat is a smokescreen to the real issues at the heart of the lawmakers who though knowing of the many failures of the president chose to be unable to act but when more money to their fattened tables has not been released, something must be done hence the threat. Always a case of personal interest overriding public good. 

You think it is not, why are first ladies, immediate past and incumbent engaged in a land dispute? It is about personal interest coming first ahead of national interest on all facets. Until someone or rather Nigerians decide to elect men and women who would rather Nigeria win a throw in than for my father to win the World Cup, we will continue to have a parliament that will show symptoms of sprained neck on executive recklessness.

The impeachment threat, yes that is what it is unfortunately, is a sham. It is not that this writer expects the president to be impeached, it is that, Nigerians are increasingly worried about the growing state of decline in progress and that something urgent must be done to stem the tide. Sadly, the national assembly is not helping Nigerians nor is the president already enmeshed in gross recklessness doing any better. We can only hope that we will someday tire of the “siddon look approach.”

May God save Nigeria.