THE controversy generated over alleged threat of impeachment of President Goodluck Jonathan deepened yesterday.
Presidency sources told our correspondents that the threat of impeachment motion in the Senate jolted President Goodluck Jonathan and his close aides who are currently battling to fend off similar threat from the House of Representatives over poor budget implementation.
But Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who threatened to move impeachment motion against President Jonathan, has, however recanted.
In a statement entitled “I am collecting signatures for implementation of BPE report, not impeachment of Mr. President,” Chukwumerije described reports linking him as one of the arrow-heads of the impeachment move against Jonathan as “sensational”
The Abia North Senator had on Thursday during the debate of a Bill for an Act to amend the Public Enterprises (Privatization and Commercialisation) Act Cap P38 LFN 2004 lamented the refusal of President Jonathan to implement Senate resolution on BPE.
The Bill, sponsored by Senator Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta North), seeks to provide for the inclusion of host communities in the sale of shares and to ensures better accountability for other related matters.
In his contribution, Chukwumerije also complained that public funds were being looted with impunity without the appropriate authority saying anything.
He declared, “Where it comes to the stage of threatening impeachment, I, Uche Chukwumerije, will move the motion.”
He, however, noted, yesterday, in the statement that “the predictably sensational report about imaginary plan to impeach President Jonathan was a gross distortion of the meaning of my short presentation in the Senate Chambers.”
His words: “In my short speech, which focused on the inexplicable delay by the Presidency in taking action on the findings of Senate report on Privatization, I emphatically declared that I, along with others, was resolved to ensure that the corrective and redemptive measures prescribed in the report were implemented to save Nigeria from this sad pattern of massive flow of public funds to private pockets under the guise of privatization, and in consolidation of the foundation of primitive accumulation of capital, which is Nigeria’s brand of capitalism.
“In pursuit of this determination, I said I was collecting signatures to co-sponsor a motion to get the Presidency to act on privatization report. Collection of signature is not impeachment notice.”
In his contribution during the debate, Chukwumerije had said, “The Ahmad Lawan report (on BPE) is the highest moral ground of the Seventh Senate so far.
“It was that report that convinced everybody, including the public, that the hope for this country lies with the Senate; that there’s still one body that’s concerned with the nation, which lies far above sectionalism.
“The pattern in this country all along has been one-siphoning of the country’s funds through all sorts of legal subtleties to private pockets and private companies.
“And for the first time, there was a bold report that exposed the rot, and we called for a reversal of this pattern. Unfortunately, it is business as usual.
“It is, therefore, in the interest of this Senate, that in addition to what we are doing on this Act as we are doing now, we must pass a resolution calling the attention of Mr. President to the main body of that report.
“As at two weeks ago, we have started collecting signatures, that if we collect up to two thirds of the Senate here, we are going to get here a motion that would give marching orders to Mr. President. We are getting to that stage.
“They are looting public funds with impunity and nobody is saying anything.
“Where it comes to the stage of threatening impeachment, I, Uche Chukwumerije, will move the motion.”
A reliable source said that the Presidency was not comfortable with “another threat of impeachment coming from the Senate.”
He said that Presidential aides were already battling to reach the leadership of the Senate to iron out the grey areas in the relationship of the two arms of government.
