NIGERIAN FEDERAL HOUSE OF REP FIGHTS OVER PLOT TO IMPEACH JONATHAN.

THERE are indications that another round of crisis is waiting to erupt in the House of Representatives when parliament resumes next Tuesday.

   On Tuesday, the Deputy Minority Leader, Suleiman Abdulrahman Kawu, dismissed alleged plans by the lawmakers to impeach Jonathan when parliament resumes next week, adding that “impeachment of the President is not on our agenda as a parliament and as such it is a figment of anybody’s imagination to suggest anything like that.”

   He also alleged a plot by some elements to use the crisis in the PDP to cause division among the lawmakers. However, the Chairman of its Committee on Finance, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has condemned Kawu for the statement credited to him, stating that the Deputy Minority Leader had no mandate to speak for the House.

  

 Jibrin, in a statement late yesterday, said that impeachment is a vital tool of constitutional democracy, just as he indicated that members already have a number of issues that would shape proceedings in the House when the National Assembly resumes next week.

   Though he said “this statement is shockingly hasty if not altogether contaminated by downright indiscretion,” as “Kawu is not in a position to speak on its behalf,” he failed to counter Kawu’s claim that the President’s impeachment was not of immediate importance when the House resumes.

   Rather, he noted that there were already “a number of issues that will shape proceedings in the House when the National Assembly resumes next week. These include massive crude oil theft, unmitigated corruption in the oil sector and full implementation of the 2013 budget. The PDP crisis has added to the problems and the House will thrash it out.”

  

Nevertheless, held added: A “majority of us members of the PDP in the National Assembly stand solidly behind the Kawu Baraje faction of the party during this era of unbridled tyranny.

   “This decision is founded on our belief in justice, equity, fairness and total disdain for impunity and any act that tends to relegate our great party to the fiefdom of despotic political mandarins.

   “What is wrong with impeachment? Is impeachment no longer a constitutional instrument in the furtherance of constitutional of democracy? Whether we will opt for it eventually is not for Kawu to determine.”

 

Guardian newspaper, reports.