Jonathan’s Impeachment Signed By 63 Senators

Sixty-three senators as of Thursday have signed up to the plan to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan in the upper legislative chamber.

Eight PDP senators are said to be among the signatories to the planned impeachment notice.

There are 109 members in the Senate.

An APC senator from the North-West zone, who asked not to be named, told our source 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.

When 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.

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 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.

The letter could not be laid on the floor of the senate because some PDP senators appealed to them to delay the action.

An APC Senator 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.”