Daily Trust

But that is Nigeria’s familiar story; a story of history ignored, history repeated; a story of the worst governing the best. It is funny how Nyako was quickly impeached, yet worse acts of gross misconduct that have serially been carried out in PDP-held st

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It is settled in law, that the greatest impeachabl­e offence any president can commit is to grossly violate the constituti­on he so swore to uphold and protect. Yet, this has been a celebrated and recurring decimal under the current administra­tion, with not as much as a whimper. Not only has the current administra­tion violated the constituti­on so manifestly, it has nonchalant­ly corrupted itself with arrogated power that it does not have, consistent­ly making the country a laughing stock in the internatio­nal community. Yet, these acts remain permanentl­y under the carpet, in a highpowere­d desperate political conspiracy to actualise 2015 at all cost. This is what happens when desperate politician­s have learnt no lessons and do not have the capacity to learn any. They care less about the number of evil plots they can commission to remain in power, as long as they can take flight once the ship capsizes.

It is against this backdrop that it is no wonder that the Nigerian president never remembered that the Chibok girls really had families until Malala Yousafzai came to remind him. Thus, in a country of more than 160 million people, the president had to wait till when a 17-yearold girl from Afghanista­n came to remind him of meeting with the families of more than 200 abducted girls in his country. What else can be more embarrassi­ng than that?

When Sgt Bowe Bergdhal was kidnapped in Afghanista­n, I wonder whether President Barack Obama had to get the advice of a 17-year-old before meeting his family. Again, at the height of Gilad Shalit abduction by Hamas guerrillas, did any 17-year-old have to chastise President Benjamin Netanyahu before he met Gilad Shalit’s family? Of course, it is given for sure that the day that happens, either of the above presidents would not last a day in office before they are impeached for lacking common sense. Well, maybe now that the Chibok girls’ families have refused to be a part of any half-hearted meeting based on the compassion of a 17-year-old foreigner, the next strange happening that can happen is for the Presidency to say that Malala Yousafzai works for the Opposition and is using those families to work against Jonathan’s re-election. Danbaba Suntai of Taraba State will still be in power and Nyako will be out.

Again, it seems so funny, how it is so easy to impeach a governor and quickly discard him as a tissue paper, and yet so difficult it is to impeach a president, no matter how much he may be ignorantly leading the country. If the same grounds that were used to impeach Nyako were to be taken as valid, should those who sponsored Nyako’s impeachmen­t not have been removed a long time ago?

Adegbite, Esq., is a lecturer in the Faculty of Law, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (Solar9ng@yahoo.com)

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