APC alleges fresh plot to impeach Governor Al-Makura

Umaru Tanko Al-Makura

The All Progressives Congress, APC, has condemned the alleged renewed plan by the Nasarawa State House of Assembly to impeach Governor Tanko Al-Makura.
The party said the lawmakers “are bent on thumbing their nose at the Constitution” in their desperation to remove the governor, who was cleared of the charges against him by a duly constituted impeachment panel.
In a statement issued in Ilorin, Kwara State, Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said “it would amount to an illegality for the lawmakers to draft a pliant vacation judge, as it has been reported, to set up another panel to probe the same 16 allegations over which the governor was absolved of any wrongdoing”.
It said the Constitution is clear that only the Chief Judge of the state can set up such a panel, upon receiving a request from the Speaker of the House of Assembly, “hence any attempt to draft a vacation judge to set up another panel will mean working against the spirit and letters of the same Constitution that gave the legislature the impeachment power in the first instance”.
APC insisted that Almakura “cannot be impeached on the basis of the same allegations”, noting that “if indeed the lawmakers want to follow the Constitution, they will have to find a new set of alleged impeachable offences against the Governor, notify him appropriately and then forward their request to the Chief Judge, not to a vacation judge.
“That this latest move by the legislators, who are now marooned in Abuja instead of their base in Lafia, is being instigated by the PDP is not in doubt, irrespective of the unconvincing and tepid denial from the party.
“This is the only reason the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, from Nasarawa State, could be goading the state legislature to disregard the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in its avowed de­termination to remove the governor, for no reason other than he belongs to the opposition. The minister is well aware that he is functioning in an atmosphere that encourages impunity, and that the President will not sanction him for encouraging illegality”.

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