Skip to main content

Aborisade: National Assembly should go beyond summon


Source
https://newtelegraphonline.com/2018/04/aborisade-national-assembly-should-go-beyond-summon/


Comrade Femi Aborisade, a lawyer and activist is a former National Secretary of the National Conscience Party (NCP)

The decision of the National Assembly to summon President Muhammadu Buhari over the increasingly unprecedented state of insecurity in the country is highly commendable even though it falls below expectation.

 
When the failure of the Federal Government to guarantee security of lives is considered alongside unprecedented economic agony to which ordinary people have been subjected to, the Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) government has totally failed and it is no longer fit to continue to rule, particularly against the backdrop of the two constitutional measures for assessing the performance of a government in power, which are security and welfare of the people, stipulated to be the primary purpose of government, in section 14(2)(b) of the country’s constitution.
In the context of flagrant violation of Section 80(2) of the constitution, which prohibits withdrawal of public money except as appropriated by the National Assembly, President Buhari has withdrawn $1 billion for the so called fight against Boko Haram insurgency and $462 million for the purchase of aircraft, all without authorisation by the National Assembly.
These are clear gross violations of the constitution. It is therefore expected that the National Assembly would take a step further, in safeguarding the sanctity of the constitution and invoke section 143 of the constitution, which permits removal of the president on account of violation of the constitution. In the past, military intervention had been justified on the grounds of corruption, non-payment of wages, high cost of living, hospitals that have become mere consulting clinics, collapse of education system, and so on. The situation today in the country is worse than at any time in the history of this country when military coups occurred.
As we are opposed to unconstitutional and undemocratic military takeover of government, we call on the National Assembly to constitutionally remove President Buhari from power in order to safeguard the continued existence of Nigeria as one united country and put in check the increasingly dangerous polarisation of the society on lines of ethnic and religious divides, based on uncontrolled genocides occurring all over the country.
 
The future of Nigeria would be imperiled where constitutionally prescribed modes of effecting changes are blocked. Heating the polity within the constitutional frame work is far better than the gradual but steady collapse of Nigeria’s constitutional democracy in the context of governance by violation of the constitution. My point of view really is that rather than a mere summon that President Buhari should appear at the National Assembly, steps ought to be taken to remove him for the sake of the future of this country.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE IMPERATIVES OF JUSTICIABILITY OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC RIGHTS IN NIGERIA: AN ANALYSIS OF CHAPTER II OF THE 1999 CONSTITUTION AND JUDICIAL ATTITUDES

  Outline The following outline has been adopted in discussing this topic: ·          Introduction ·          What are the provisions of Chapter II of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN ) 1999? ·          The essence of the Chapter II provisions ·          Two Schools of Thought on Chapter II ·          The non-justiciability constitutional provision ·          The pro-justiciability provisions o    The constitutional pro-justiciability provisions o    Statutory pro-justiciability provisions: The African Charter on
1 comment
Read more

GRATUITY AND RETIREMENT BENEFITS AND THE PENSION REFORM ACT 2004

Femi Aborisade Senior Principal Lecturer Department of Business Administration & Management Studies The Polytechnic, Ibadan & Centre for Labour Studies (CLS) Email: aborisadefemi@yahoo.com   Introduction Internationally, pension reform has been a common feature of public sector financial reforms since the 1990s. According to the OECD (2007), in Europe , the reforms have led to increased retirement age but a reduction in terminal benefits. Similar reforms have been embarked upon in the developing countries resulting in throwing poorer segments of the society into harsher economic conditions as responsibilities for old age care are transferred from the state to the individuals. Within the context of pension reforms on a global scale, this paper critically examines Nigeria ’s Pension Reform Act 2004. Though the particular interest of this workshop appears limited to provisions relating to gratuity under the Act, it is assumed that participants wo...
4 comments
Read more

ON CREATION AND/OR RECOVERY OF GRAZING RESERVES BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

There is no justifiable legal basis for the project of the Federal Government to recover or create grazing reserves across NIGERIA. That project can only be attained by military violence against unarmed people. It is therefore a declaration of avoidable war against the peaceful Nigerian people. It would create and fan embers of mutual ethnic hatred, conflict and avoidable bloodshed. I call on ordinary people to reject and resist the grazing reserves project of the Federal Government. All 36 state Governors, nationally and regionally, have resolved that open grazing is unsustainable. It causes avoidable bloody clashes between herders and farmers. Rather, ranching should be embraced. I do not see how the Federal Government can achieve it's project of creating or recovering grazing preserves across Nigeria.  Firstly, the Grazing Reserves Act of 1964 was limited to the Northern Region; it was not applicable to the other regions. Secondly, section 1 of the Land Use Act vests land owners...
Post a Comment
Read more