A pro-democracy group, the Coalition for Parliamentary Democracy (CPD), has cautioned the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to refrain from pointing fingers of scorn at his colleagues in the Red Chamber over an alleged plot to impeach him. The CPD issued this caution in a statement on Tuesday.
The media was flooded over the weekend with news reports of an alleged plot by aggrieved lawmakers to remove the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, upon their resumption from their annual recess. Reacting to the report, Senator Ishaku Abbo, representing Adamawa North, accused the Senate President of labelling certain former governors from the North West, who incidentally are serving Senators, as the masterminds of the plot.
Reinforcing Senator Abbo’s stance, the National Coordinator of the CPD, Dr. Menike Johnson, challenged the embattled Senate President to step down instead of instigating the Presidency and certain regions against the North. Johnson urged Senator Akpabio to consider the genuine grievances of his colleagues, which revolve around alienation and a lack of leadership acumen, rather than heating the polity.
The CPD described the recourse to what it called “a face-saving measure of accusing a state governor” as disappointing, deeming it a very dangerous and unstatesmanlike venture capable of triggering a crisis in the polity.
“As parliamentary watchers, we believe that Senator Akpabio should address the issues raised by his colleagues, including allegations of lack of transparency, violation of elementary rudiments, conventions, and processes of presiding over the Senate and diminishing the integrity of the Senate on financial matters, as well as claims of preferentialism in the management of the Senate.
“The attempt to overheat the polity by blaming external individuals is a self-indicting measure that does not provide the much-expected answers to the critical issue of leadership failure raised by senators against the embattled Senate President.
“Having admitted that he has lost favour with his colleagues and having no answers to the very serious issues raised by the Senators, which border on leadership failure, we counsel Senator Akpabio to save the nation further trouble by stepping down as Senate President.
“Our nation is in a very critical moment, and Nigerians cannot afford a Senate that is plagued by unstable leadership that does not command the loyalty of the lawmakers,” CPD stated.
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