SIXTY-three senators as of Thursday have
signed up to the plan to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan in the
upper legislative chamber, The PUNCH learnt in Abuja.
One of the arrowheads of the move to
remove Jonathan in the Senate showed our correspondent the list
containing the signatures of the senators.
The source said eight Peoples Democratic Party senators were among the signatories to the planned impeachment notice.
There are 109 members in the Senate.
An All Progressives Congress senator
from the North-West zone, who asked not to be named,told our
correspondent that the lawmakers’ major grouse was the President’s
handling of the economy and political affairs of the country.
The senator cited poor implementation of
the national budget since 2011, alleged high level of corruption and
“gross disregard” of the legislature at both the federal and state
levels as topping the list of lawmakers’ anger against Jonathan.
Asked whether he realised that the
process of impeachment could be tedious and cumbersome, the senator
said, “ We know and we are prepared to show the President that we have
responsibility to the people and the nation in general.
“We are prepared to lay the impeachment notice anytime from next week. Meetings are already being held.”
Senator Ibrahim Musa (APC Niger North)
confirmed that there were moves by some members of the Senate to
initiate impeachment proceedings against the President but failed to
give details.
“I think there is something like that but I don’t have the details, it is still coming as a rumour,” Musa said.
But The PUNCH learnt that the
impeachment move against the President had really gained momentum with
the APC senators mobilising themselves to carry out the exercise anytime
from next week.
Investigations by our correspondent
revealed that some PDP senators, who were initially at the forefront of
the struggle, had retreated following the intervention of the senate
leadership and the promise of automatic tickets by the party.
It was learnt that the PDP senators had
been pleading with their APC colleagues to hold on till next week
pending the outcome of the moves by the senate leadership to ensure the
realisation of the automatic tickets agreement they had with the PDP and
Jonathan.
An APC senator told our correspondent on
condition of anonymity that the impeachment letter contains the
signature of both the APC and PDP senators.
He explained that the letter could not
be laid on the floor of the senate because some PDP senators appealed to
them to delay the action.
He said, “The truth of the matter is
that the impeachment notice would have been laid if not for our
colleagues in the PDP who pleaded with us to delay the process pending
when the senate leadership would come up with the result of its efforts
at securing automatic tickets for them.
“In any case the process had started but
if we submit the letter now, the signatures of the PDP senators will be
there and the party might want to use that as an excuse to deny them
their automatic tickets.”
The PDP senators contacted by our correspondent on the issue declined to make comment.
However, one of them who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the process of impeachment had not been suspended.
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