12 Kebbi Assembly Legislators Move to Impeach Governor

One month to the end of their tenure, the Kebbi State House of Assembly is in turmoil.

On Wednesday, 12 of the 24-member Assembly claimed to have issued an impeachment no­tice to the state Governor, Saidu Usman Dakingari.

The 12 had on Tuesday claimed to have also impeached the Speaker, Mohammed Shalla and deputy Mohammed Ja’afaru. They thereafter claimed to have elected a former Speaker of the House, Habib Jega, who was im­peached in a controversial man­ner in November 2014.

The lawmakers on Tuesday night constituted an impeach­ment committee which, accord­ing to them, drafted a six- count charge against the governor.

In the notice, made available to journalists on Wednesday, the legislators accused the governor of violating Section 5(1) (a) of the Kebbi State Budget Monitor­ing and Price Intelligence Bu­reau Law 2008, which stipulates that the Chairman of the Bureau should be a retired Civil Servant.

In the notice, they told the Governor that his impeachable offences include that he:

“… appointed one Barr. Aminu Usman as Chairman of the Bureau, when he was the Permanent Secretary/Solicitor General of the State Ministry of Justice. With this move, you have committed a gross miscon­duct;

“You Usman Nasamu Dak­ingari obtained a loan facility to the tune of N2 billion from Micro, Small and Medium En­terprises Support Fund set up by the Central Bank without ob­taining necessary confirmation from the Kebbi State House of Assembly; and

“You also violated section 7 of the Constitution of the Fed­eral Republic of Nigeria 1999(as amended) which enjoins you to ensure the existence of demo­cratically elected Local Govern­ment Councils, but you continue to work with unelected local councils in the State.”

Other allegations are:

“Between the period of Janu­ary and April 2015, you mis­appropriated the sum of N1, 800,862,872.00K from the Kebbi State Government funds in the name of general election 2015 and there is no provision for that expenditure in the Appropria­tion Law 2015.

“Misappropriation of N965,000,000,00 during official visit of Mr. President, Vice Presi­dent and First Lady of the Feder­al Republic of Nigeria between November 2014 and March 2015, and that Mr. Vice President and the First Lady did not make any official visit to Kebbi State with­in that period and thereby com­mitted a gross misconduct;

“That you issued the renova­tion and furnishing of the Presi­dential Lodge and other govern­ment lodges at the cost of N558, 560,416.00 to unknown contrac­tor in September 2014 and you wrongly inflated the cost to the tune of N788,813,490.54k from N1,347,373,906.54K.”

The Secretary to the State Government, Garba Kamba, de­scribed the action of the 12 legis­lators as unconstitutional.

Kamba said: “By this very act, the purported members have pre-empted the decision of the Kebbi State High Court,” add­ing: “These members aim to cause disaffection and truncate the smooth transition of gov­ernment following the recent election.”

He declared that the govern­ment would continue to recog­nise Shalla as Speaker of the Assembly.