President Jonathan Is Not Target Of Constitution Amendment – Dogara By: Kingsley Alu on August 20, 2013 - 5:00am Hon Yakubu Dogara is the Chairman, House Services Committee, and represents Bogoro, Dass and Tafawa Balewa Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives. In this interview with KINGSLEY ALU, he speaks on the ongoing constitution amendment and other issues. You and three other members recently sponsored a Bill widely thought to ease the impeachment of the President and Vice President; what informed this Bill? Several reasons. I am sure time and space will not allow me to catalogue them, but I will highlight a few of them. Section 146 of the Constitution mentions impeachment as one of the grounds by which the Vice President may assume the office of the President but, shockingly, the Constitution does not provide for how the president or vice president can be impeached. Section 143 which the Bill seeks to amend provide for the removal but not impeachment of the President and Vice President. So that is a huge lacuna in the Constitution that needs to be filled. Another defect of S.143 of the Constitution is that it only provides for the removal of the two office holders on account of gross misconduct in the performance of the functions of their offices. That means unofficial conduct is not a ground for the removal of the two office holders, even if such unofficial conduct amounts to betrayal of the nation or serves to seriously undermine the offices they occupy. This is clearly unacceptable. Also, a fundamental requirement of our legal system is that no one can be punished for an offence until he has been tried and found guilty of that offence. The trial is supposed to be open and transparent in accordance with the requirements of the principles of natural justice. S. 143 of the Constitution fails to provide for any form of trial. It talks only of an investigative panel of seven. S.143 therefore violates a fundamental pillar of our jurisprudence by requiring that the president or vice president can be punished by removal from office without any form of trial. Section 143 of the Constitution also fails to clearly separate the body that accuses from the body whose province it is to determine the accusation. Between the National Assembly and the panel of seven which investigates it is not clear who the accuser is and who the judge is. This also is a clear violation of fair hearing which is the cornerstone of our jurisprudence. The most dumb provision of S.143 is the requirement that a panel of seven appointed by the Chief Justice of the Federation - himself an appointee of the office holder who is facing removal - has the constitutional powers to make a determination which is binding on the National Assembly and the courts. This is repugnant to the very philosophy of popular government. I can go on and on because the issues are endless. The defects of S.143 of the Constitution are many as highlighted by you, but are they enough to warrant the proposals you have tabled before the House? In the context of the many paradoxes and lacunas I have spoken about, absolutely yes. In addition, we must come to see that the root cause of endemic corruption in our dear country is S.143 of the Constitution. I make this statement with all sense of responsibility. Successive Nigerian presidents have studied and analysed this section very well and have come to the conclusion that it cannot be carried out in practical terms; that is why they operate like the medieval kings of whom it was said, “lived of themselves.” Our laws don’t count at all. Few examples will suffice. S.80 of the Constitution is never complied with. There are multiple accounts like the excess crude account that the President secretly and openly operates against the provision of the Constitution. The president has blatantly refused to constitute the National Procurement Council, a necessary minimum requirement of the Public Procurement Act because he does not want to give up a right to determine which contractor gets what. The weekly FEC meetings have been turned into procurement meetings, while crucial national issues like security are relegated to the background. The National Assembly cannot successfully invoke S. 143 of the Constitution so the culture of impunity is in the ascendancy. The president wields unprecedented constitutional powers without any effective checks. As Lord Acton Said, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If the president does not obey the laws of the land what moral justification do I have to sit in parliament to make laws that binds only the lesser mortals? There is nothing like a rotten fish with a fresh head. If our society is rotten, it is because our leaders are rotten. If we are lawless, it is because our leaders are lawless. This is the challenge we are faced with as a nation. Civil rule has come, but democracy is still a mirage. How do we ensure that our leaders obey our laws in the absence of sanctions that can guarantee effective deterrence? Unless our leaders sit up, and unless we refashion the democratic tools of deterrence by making impeachment and removal from office more probable than likely, we will sadly keep groping in the dark. We have an opportunity to effect these changes now and that is what compels this Bill. In summary, how has the Bill you have sponsored attempt to make the process of impeachment and removal more probable rather than likely as you have said? In summary, the Bill proposes that the House will have the sole powers to impeach the president or the vice- president as the case may be in line with the tenets of representative democracy. However, the impeachment by the House would amount to no more than an indictment. After the impeachment, the matter will be referred to the Senate for trial where a select group of members of the House will serve as prosecutors. To guard against procedural injustice, the Chief Justice if the Federation will preside over the trial after which the Senate will debate a verdict and vote to convict. A two third vote of the Senate will suffice to convict and remove the office holder from office failing which the office holder survives the impeachment and retains his office. In addition, the Senate is also required to vote to bar the removed office holder from holding any position of trust in the country. If the impeachable offence involves a crime, the regular courts will additionally prosecute the removed office holder. This naturally eliminates the CJN’s panel of seven which is no more than middle some interloper in the political process. This process is in tandem with our body of laws and guarantees fair hearing. It separates the body that accuses, the House of Representatives from the body that tries and convicts, which is the Senate. You seem to be against concentration of powers, yet you appear to be advocating absolute powers to be vested in the Parliament for impeachment purposes; is it not a paradox or a contradiction? It is neither a paradox nor a contradiction but it is an accepted democratic practice. Impeachment is a political process involving political offences committed by politicians with political punishments. It does not fall within the sphere of ordinary jurisprudence where the normal courts hold sway. In America it is the House that impeaches while the Senate tries and convicts. In Britain it is the province of the House of Commons to prefer the impeachment and of the House of Lords to determine it. There is no civilised democracy that has in its constitution the kind of draconian provisions in S.143 of our Constitution. For our democracy to be first - class, we must first of all do away with second- class provisions in our Constitution and Statutes. There is no better way to guarantee our place in the comity of civilised democratic nations. This we owe our children and posterity. Why should we always borrow from America and other countries instead of developing our own home-grown solutions to national challenges? Unfortunately we borrowed presidential democracy from America. It is the single most important contribution of America to the art of government. We can modify only to the extent that we do not touch the roots in order not to end up with something else or less. You cannot borrow an American Lincoln and attempt to use Toyota, Mercedes or Range Rover manual to interpret and maintain it. That will be a sure recipe for disaster. Impeachment goes to the roots of democracy in that it keeps those who wield overwhelming constitutional powers in check. It checks corruption at the highest level and guarantees the fidelity of our leaders to our Constitution and laws. Any country that does not effectively provide for it risks having despots as leaders. The outcome in Nigeria is not any different. The Bill has been severally criticised for wrong timing. Some have said President Goodluck Jonathan, is the target. Some have alleged that it will be wrongly interpreted no matter the good intentions because of the challenges of governance at the moment. What is your take on this? It is ludicrous and even wicked to impute this kind of improper motive on our part without looking at the merits of what is on the table. Of course with the culture of sycophancy which our civilian rule promotes, there is hardly anything one does that will be interpreted to be objective. Some in the opposition have claimed that we are doing the bidding of PDP by sharpening the tool of impeachment in preparation of when the opposition will produce the president. All these claims pander to vanity. How can the Parliament alter a section of the Constitution just to target an individual? I addressed the issue of timing while leading the debate on the Bill. I will still let the timeless admonishment by the Late Dr King Jnr speak to this puerile objection. It was Dr King who said, “Time itself is neutral. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realise that the time is always ripe to do right. The question therefore is whether what we have proposed is right or wrong. If it is right, then the time is ripe now to provide for it. There will never be a time when such a radical proposal like this will not be misinterpreted. We must abandon caution and embrace courage without which our democracy will always remained nascent. Would you be disappointed if eventually the Bill fails to scale through all the hurdles of constitutional amendment? I hope and pray it does. Naturally, I should be disappointed if the Bill fails. The executive will continue to violate our laws and the culture of impunity will not abate. But there something in the character of truth that never dies. I am sure one day we will return to it. May that day not come when the overwhelming majority of our people would favour removing a president or vice president from office. That is when they will know that S.143 of the Constitution cannot be carried out because of its self-defeating nature and there is nothing the National Assembly can do about it. If our people know the revolution this amendment will bring to our fight against corruption, lawlessness and misgovernance, there will be another round of Occupy Nigeria to compel this amendment. Imagine President Obama or Prime Minister David Cameron violating the Constitution or laws of their country. The consequences are such that they cannot contemplate it. But if they were Nigerian presidents, they will violate our constitution and laws because as a people we have accepted the lie that it is normal for the president to violate the laws. This is unacceptable and time has come to halt this madness that has stultified our advancement as a nation. What is your take on House of Reps position on local government autonomy? Local government autonomy was passed with 393 votes which are far above the 2/3 votes needed to pass it. For me and majority of my colleagues Local Government autonomy remains uppermost in our hearts. Remember we had the Peoples’ Public Session where overwhelming constituencies across the nation voted for local government autonomy. As the most immediate representatives of the people, we are under a oath to uphold the wishes of our constituents and nothing else. Local government autonomy will free the third tier funds from the stranglehold of state governors who have became middlemen in the process of moving these funds to the grassroots. It will engender development and employment at the grassroots. Availability of funds will also attract credible leadership at Local Government level. Misapplication and misappropriation of Local Government funds at the State level is the major reason why there are so much hunger, illiteracy, despondency and hopelessness at the grassroots. All these feed terrorism, kidnappings, insecurity and other vices that threaten the very fabric of our nation and our democracy. Most governors, if not all are, against the autonomy. Most of them have alleged that some Local Governments are not viable and may collapse if autonomy is granted to them. A greater number of them have alleged that LG Chairmen are useless and would steal the LGs blind if they are given autonomy. But we all know that those are not the real reasons why they are against LG autonomy. Is there any LG chairman out there that is not a lackey of his governor? Most LG chairmen are appointees of the governors and in rare cases where LG elections are held, the governors ensure that their respective parties win all the council chairmanship elections thereby ushering in their “boys” to obviate the possibility of any dissent when LG funds are hijacked and stolen at the state level. Is it not tautologious logic to use the tragic consequences of an evil system as justification for its continuation? We are under no illusion on this matter. The people have spoken in a profoundly eloquent and unequivocal terms that they want LG autonomy. We will stand with the people on this matter not minding the cost as most members have already put their political carrier at great risk. I am happy that the courage to embrace change in this matter has matched the audacity of the very few who steal from all of us. Do you think the Senate will agree with the House’s position on local government autonomy? The Senate has already voted against local government autonomy and I doubt they will ever revisit that subject matter again in this session. All that is required now is for the conference committee of both the Senate and the House to work out a harmonised Bill that will go to the State Assemblies for concurrence. Reason will prevail here. If you do a summation of 393 members and the total number of Senators who voted for local government autonomy, you will get far more than the 2/3 votes of the National Assembly needed to pass it. Likewise if you do a summation of the very few members and all the Senators that voted against it, you will arrive at a very disappointing and inconsequential number. Votes count in National Assembly. It is not the NGF where 16 is more than 19. As far as I am concerned, this is a settled matter. The governors can use their State Assemblies to kill it as they have boasted but, it is a fait accompli at our own end. APC has been registered; what does this portend for Nigeria’s democracy? Nothing! Let us see its manifesto first. The problem with our democracy is not the party or degree of opposition, it is the people. The questions are: who are the promoters of APC? Are they principled and credible enough to stand to the end? In what ways are they different from those in PDP and other political parties? Until credible answers are given to questions like these, any optimism of our democracy rebounding on the mere basis that APC has been registered may turn out a good riddance to bad rubbish. For now my fingers are crossed. Do you think Nigerians will accept the amended constitution? Absolutely, yes. On the part of the House I belong to, we haven’t done anything that is contrary to the outcome of the People’s Public Session which took place in all the federal constituencies. All the issues rejected at the People’s Public Session are conspicuously left out of the Bill. In fact, this is the first time in the history of constitution making in Nigeria that the people can legitimately claim to have participated. We are humbled by the fact that God used our leaders and members as the vehicle to lay the foundation for a truly autochthonous Nigerian Constitution.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 20:42:47 +0000
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