Twenty four hours after Senators across party lines threatened to serve President Muhammadu Buhari impeachment notice on worsening insecurity in Nigeria, their counterparts in the House of Representatives joined them.
Senators from the various opposition parties had on Wednesday after storming out of plenary told journalists that they are giving President Buhari six weeks ultimatum to address the problem of insecurity across the country or face impeachment.
Adding bite to the move, the PDP caucus in the Senate met with their House of Representatives counter parts on Thursday at the Senate Hearing room one for joint action.
Briefing journalists after the meeting, the Minority Leader in the House of Representatives, Hon Ndudi Elumelu, said they were on the same page with their Senate counterparts as Abuja in particular and Nigeria generally, no longer safe.
According to him, both Chambers of the National Assembly had given the Presidency all the required legislative supports to fight insecurity within the last six years without any tangible result to show for such interventions.
He said, “The nation has been awash with what happened yesterday in the Senate where our colleagues had to walk out in protest as to the state of the nation as regards to the issue of insecurity in the nation.
“Concurrently, even though we did not do it exactly the way they did it, we also drew the House attention as to what is happening in Nigeria, most importantly in FCT. In FCT, just few weeks back, Kuje Prison was invaded. Few days back, the law school on Bwari road, some very, very important Nigerians who at their youth in the armed forces were butchered by the insurgents.
“They have given 6 to 8 weeks for Mr. President to address the insecurity that is, of course, affecting this nation, and I want to also join on behalf of my colleagues to also say that upon the expiration, we will proffer ways of ensuring that we will gather all the signatures.
“And let me make it clear. Those who are thinking that it is only the issue of PDP or the minority caucus, no. Many of our colleagues under the bipartisanship are affected. Many of them are affected. So, they may not be speaking but we may be speaking for them. And when them time comes. I heard somebody this morning saying it is a laughable attempt to want do that. Perhaps, when the action starts, the person will find out that it’s not a laughable action. It’s real and we will not stand to allow this nation collapse.
“We think that it is high time, the insecurity of this nation is addressed. And of course, we also have the issue of oil theft which has risen, now making it difficult for us to earn income from oil revenue. And these and many others are the reasons we are joining our colleagues in the Senate to ask Mr. President to address the insecurity of this nation within 6 and 8 weeks. Otherwise, we will find the constitutional means to ensure that we serve him an impeachment notice.”
Earlier at the briefing, the Minority Leader in the Senate, Senator Philip Tanimu Aduda (PDP FCT), said the move to make President Muhammadu Buhari shape up or ship out, as far as the problem of insecurity is concerned, is not restricted to federal lawmakers in the minority parties but also those in the ruling party.
He said, “Our actions yesterday (Wednesday July 27, 2022) were spontaneous from the issues that were raised on the floor of the Senate. I am sure that members of the Press must have interacted with our various colleagues to know that this issue is not just about the PDP caucus but it is a bipartisan issue.
“We all agreed that the security architecture is failing and there is need to salvage it immediately and we also agreed that we must issue an impeachment notice to the President if the situation keeps deteriorating because the primary responsibility of government is the protection of lives of the citizens”.
