Reviewing the events culminating in this week’s impeachment of Alhaji Murtala Nyako as governor of Adamawa State by the State Assembly, Tinubu said the development is a setback for Nigeria’s democracy.
“Under the constitution, a governor can only be impeached for ‘gross misconduct.’ For the PDP, Nyako’s crime was not the false allegations contained in the articles of impeachment. To them, his gross misconduct was leaving the reactionary PDP to join the progressive APC. His misdeed was to exercise his constitutional right of freedom of association and political expression by leaving their corrupt assemblage and joining the party that just may represent the best hope of rescuing Nigeria from its present descent into authoritarian darkness,” he said in a statement in Lagos.
Continuing, Tinubu said: “Perhaps, Governor Nyako’s greatest sin is his temerity to speak truth to power albeit in a courageous way. On two different occasions, he gave an unvarnished insight into the Boko Haram menace and the insecurity engulfing Northern Nigeria.
“At the Institute of Peace in Washington DC, this year when he visited with other Northern governors, he placed the blame for the Boko Haran insurgency on the Jonathan presidency. He then followed this up with a detailed letter to the forum of the Northern governors, in which he accused the Jonathan-led government of genocide against the North.
“This rattled and unsettled the government. Repeated attempts to have Gov. Nyako withdraw his letter and apologize to the President failed. From the moment he wrote that letter, he became a marked man. The government savaged the governor through the media.
“This kangaroo impeachment is government’s way of punishing Nyako. The plan is to use the contents of the letter he wrote to the Northern Governors as a basis to try him for treasonable felony and eventually sentence him to life imprisonment. Nyako’s frank, if rough-edged, letter concerning the security situation apparently infuriated the monarch of Aso Villa who has become so arrogant as to believe no opposition against him is justified, thus he has the liberty to impose his brand of injustice to crush those who oppose him.
“Before our eyes and under Jonathan’s watch, Nigeria gradually descends into fascism. We must all act now before it consumes us al” Tinubu said.
The former Lagos State governor also deplored the President’s handling of the abduction of the Chibok girls by Boko Haram, especially his refusal to see the parents of the girls until the recent visit to Nigeria of the Pakistani pupil activist, Malala.
Source: The Nation
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