Oshiomhole to Saraki: APC will impeach you through legal, democratic norm
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has disclosed that the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki’s impeachment will be done through legal and democratic norm.
He said Saraki’s leaving the party has no political consequences on the APC as he claimed that the Senate President did not win his local government during the 2015 Presidential election.
The party Chairman noted that Saraki, who joined the party as a Senator, emerged Senate President under the auspices of the same party, should have honourably resigned his position as the leader of the National Assembly before his defection to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Oshiomhole, who stated this during a press conference at the National Secretariat of the APC in Abuja on Friday, was reacting to Saraki’s recent assertion that all he had been doing were in the interest of the nation.
Oshiomhole said: “He is not the rightful guy in town to occupy the office of the Senate President of the Federal Republic as he has been acting on personal interest and ambition; his emergence as the leader of the National Assembly is a clear pointer so, if he will be impeached, it will be done through legal and democratic norm.
“Unfitted attempts he has made and his unsubstantiated allegations to the effect that the event of last Tuesday was an attempt to carry out illegal impeachment, how can a presiding officer arrive at such a conclusion that there was a plan to carry out illegal impeachment. Until an action takes place, how can you determine the status?
“But it is lawful to impeach anyone including the President of the Senate, the deputy president of the Senate, if the number required to do so is present, so he cannot preempt it.
As they say, you don’t have to be a pathological liar before you understand this. Once you start with one lie, you will need serious of lies to support that one lie.
“I don’t want to use the word lie to characterise the action of the statement of the Senate President.
But let us look at the fact, from their own statement, they said they were aware that the Senate President was to be illegally impeached and therefore, they mobilised thugs, their journalists, cameramen and videos to the Senate that they had told the world they had adjourned till 25th of September,
Meanwhile, about 15 PDP senators were in the Senate and for the event, they imported hundreds of thugs that molested one or two of our members that they sighted in the premises of the Senate.
“In order to evade the lies, I asked you as defendants of democracy, did you find any APC senator in the Senate? So, if APC senators were not in the Senate but only PDP senators, what is the basis of the false report that there were attempts to carry out illegal impeachment?
“In any case, Saraki is not going to be the first Senate president to be impeached and I doubt if he is going to be the last but definitely he will be impeached according to law and to democratic norms.
“The only way Saraki can avoid impeachment is for him to do what is honourable which again leads to the issue of character. We saw Senator Akpabio who was the PDP leader in the Senate, once he made up his mind to leave the PDP, even before announcing his defection; the first role is to inform the PDP as a man of honour; I hereby resign from this office. So, Senator Saraki has demonstrated neither character nor being a man of honour”.
