The crisis raging between the Presidency and the National Assembly has taken a new turn as the United States has waded into the matter. In the heat of the imbroglio, the United State Ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart Symington, had proceeded to the Red Chambers where he had a closed door meeting with the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, over the current Executive-Legislative impasse. It is believed that the meeting is not unconnected with the recent invitation of the Inspector General of Police, I.G., to Saraki to come and answer questions on his arming of political tugs. The alleged Offa robbers had allegedly fingered him as their employer as political thugs. But Saraki has allegedly fired back to the I.G., telling him that the same political thugs were used to rig elections for Buhari. “The thugs you said I hired were actually used to rig election for Buhari in 2015. If in doubt, find below the total votes by Kwarans for Buhari & Jonathan. I’m sure you will be convinced after realizing that Buhari won Jonathan by wide margin in Kwara and that was made possible by those ‘good boys’ you now call ‘robbers’…..Prof Jega Iscariot is my witness, wallahi!”
United States congress has recently accused Nigerian government as being indifferent to the lives being lost due to the Herdsmen.
“Congress is watching the situation in Nigeria with growing concern, as the Nigerian government there appears too often to be indifferent to attacks by Fulani herdsmen on predominantly Christian farmers. The confluence of religious, ethnic, economic and political tensions is only likely to be exacerbated in the lead-up to elections next year unless President Muhammadu Buhari speaks out with a clear voice condemning the herdsmen attacks”, said Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Chair of the House Sub-committee on Global Human Rights and a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. This, together with President Trump statement that “We will do something about (killing of Christians)” defines the current United States policy towards Nigeria.
But the Buhari Administration appears to be indifferent to these sentiments. The disdain with which the Inspector general of Police holds the National Assembly and even the President appear to have woken the National Assembly from stupor to, for the first time, have a joint session where they itemized points of divergence from the executive, warning Buhari to rein in his principal officers or face the consequences. Already members of both chambers are collating signatures towards the impeachment of Buhari. “Yes, I am aware of the collation of signatures. But I am not in support. I can assure you that if that happens, there will be war” a member of the house of Reps told this Magazine. This was confirmed by Mohamed Ganduje Kazaure, another member of House of Reps. “The issue of people collecting signatures to serve a notice of impeachment to the president…we know this is happening in the House,” He said. “But we know nobody can afford to show us the list of people who want to impeach the president. I tell you nobody can present this list because they cannot get two-third majority. Those of us who support the president in the Senate and the House have the numbers. We are strong enough to stop anything called impeachment,”
The Presidency, on its own, is not taking things lightly. In the heat of the issues, Buhari summoned a security meeting involving all the service chiefs to deliberate on the next line of action in case the National Assembly decides to carry out their threats.
All these appear to have put a question mark on the possibility of the president seeking a second term in 2019, as it appears that the international community may not be in consonant with it-with the exception of probably Britain.
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