EARSHOT Why Does Jonathan Take Personal Advantage Of His Office? One of the lures of democracy is that nobody, not even the president, is above the law. In military governments, the head of state is actually above the law; often, he equates himself with the state. That is why democracy is said to be the preferred form of government, and Nigerians killed themselves to earn the current democracy that we now have. The reason why President Richard Nixon of the United States quickly resigned was because the Congress wanted to impeach and remove him from office for ordering the bugging of the campaign offices of the opposition party. There is no democracy so properly called where the president is allowed to take advantage of his office or state institutions for personal gains. That president would be removed in no time. If the president is not removed, then that government becomes a dictatorship even if it is headed by a civilian. But President Jonathan apparently does not know this. He it was that removed Justice Ayo Salami, the president of the Federal Court of Appeal, because the judge was going to pass an unfavourable judgement against the president’s election, and he got away with it. It is the same President Jonathan that removed a CBN governor from office even when it was clear that he didn’t have such powers. Jonathan shocked the world to its foundation when he “suspended” the governor from office for daring to blow the whistle. Even in this, he was trying to protect thieves who are very close to him (and are still close to him) and who have crippled the government as we now see. Two weeks ago, the president froze the accounts of the Adamawa State government in order to make it easier for the governor, Murtala Nyako, his avowed enemy, to be impeached and removed from office. The governor’s aircraft was also impounded by agents of the government in order to force the impeachment notice on him. The governor escaped by travelling by road. If the president had received “intelligence” that Nyako would be travelling by road, the military would have been instructed to physically block him as they did to some governors in Ekiti. Jonathan has also used the aviation authorities to shut down airports in order to prevent opposition politicians from operating. During the last Ekiti election, the president ordered the police and military to stop opposition governors from entering Ekiti State. Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s helicopter was prevented from taking off and Governor Rotimi Amaechi was harassed and almost physically assaulted by the military. If this democracy were working properly, only one of those acts would have been sufficient to remove the president from office. And while the president was physically stopping opposition governors from entering Ekiti, the military and police were escorting PDP chieftains from other states into Ekiti, including a certified thug called Chris Uba who kidnapped a sitting governor during the reign of another outlaw president. The danger of the National Assembly not calling the president to order in such matters – which is clearly their brief as envisaged by the constitution – is that the masses of the people might soon start resorting to self-help, which is always very dangerous to everyone. The problem with such presidential lawlessness is that nobody knows when the tipping point is reached. My advice to President Jonathan is that he must never allow anybody to encourage him to do any of those things again because, ultimately he alone would bear the legacy. Towards the end of President Nixon’s reign, he declared: “I am not a crook” and “there can be no whitewash at the White House”. Our president must never put himself in any such awkward position.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 09:29:18 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015