 Impeachment threat against Buhari Reel says National Assembly PDP caucus and Airboy PDP battle self-inflicted crisis as 2023 polls becomes threatened. This is Plus Politics, I am Mary Anacorn. Expectedly mixed reactions from Nigerians, especially Senators and other stakeholders have trailed the lawmakers threats to impeach the President, even as Senators are sharply divided over the matter. It could be recalled that some Senators last Wednesday stormed out of plenary in protest against Senators President Ahmad Laland's failure to make public their resolution from a closed-door meeting, where they had resolved to issue a six-week ultimatum after which they will use the impeachment notice against the President over insecurity. Senators to raise the motion to that effect on the Senate's floor by the Minority Leader, Senator Philip Aoududa, was turned down by the Senate President Ahmad Laland earlier, which compelled some of these Senators to stage a walkout. But a Deputy Senate President Ovi Omoye Gehwale, forcing the impeachment option, stated that communication mechanism between the National Assembly and the Presidency had not been fully explored and exhausted. Well, joining us to discuss this is Biodu Shomi. Thank you very much, Mr. Shomi, for joining us. Mr. Shomi, thank you so much for joining us. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Great. Let's take our minds back to what happened last week and the impeachment threat, apparently from especially PDP members on the floor of the National Assembly, who are optimistic that other members of the National Assembly will be in support of this move. My first question, obviously, is, has there ever been this sort of move in the National Assembly, in the history of Nigeria, that was followed through to the latter for an impeachment process or protocol to even take, you know, a route? Has this ever happened and why now, if it has never happened, why do we think it will even ever, you know, be attempted? Yes. We about the impeachment moves at state levels, drawn to conclusion, unlike at national level. At the national level, we have really had one such impeachment move. That was when Oba Sokyo was in power in his first time and some senators believed that he would be working for the vice president at that time, you know, make moves to actually remove him or deprive him of his technical care. But that was not the truth. Unlike the state's one, the first one in the state was a case of a lot of people who were removed, impeached, the governor of Canada said, then you had Ladoga's case too, Ladoga was removed in your state and then you had the state. So at the state level, we have three impeachment, you know, drawn to the protocol and followed the procedures. At the federal level, we have only one such move, but it never materialized. Now, the British state governor had been lauded for, you know, supporting the impeachment call by members of the National Assembly on Mr. President. In fact, young people had said that this might wake in Mr. President from his slumber and many would ask if Mr. President really is asleep or are his hands tied in terms of this dealing with the issue of terrorism. Now, might I remind you that this is one of the things that Mr. President had campaigned on in 2015, promising that he was going to deal with insecurity and looking at insecurity then and now, it was not at this level, even though many would argue that there were bombings in Abuja, there were students that were kidnapped, et cetera, et cetera. But here we are and members of the National Assembly beat the opposition are saying, well, we want to make sure that Mr. President does something in six weeks and if after six weeks expires, this is what we want to do. But do they have the numbers? This is another question. What is very clear here is that those who are threatening the unity of this country today, creating so much insecurity of lives and property, threatening the capital city, threatening Bwari itself are in bed with Mr. President. They are in bed with him. Yeah, what I mean is that Mr. President is guilty of complicity, muting difference, you know, or outright support for whatever is going on with the country. It is increasingly becoming difficult for anybody to think that there is no consent coming from Mr. President. Don't forget that even when the Brigades of Guards were attacked, Mr. President left this country to go and make sure to give a speech on security in life in there, ignoring the fact that the speech action should have taken its air. So it is increasingly becoming more, we are beginning to believe, more and more people are going to believe that a script is being acted to truncate the electoral process going in our country. And this, in my view, will be closely resistant. Can I ask, I mean, because what you just said seems to be, there's a lot of speculation, I sense, in that statement that you've made that Mr. President might be complicit. He has somewhat, you know, not necessarily given off the body language that we expect a President to give off at a time like this. But could it be because the President himself has kept mute on this issue for so long, hence the speculation? Because I'm wondering to myself, why would a President, a man who waited for so long to be President of this country, why he would keep quiet and watch innocent Nigerians being kidnapped, being tortured, being killed, even men of the guard that he used to be part of, which our soldiers, our very garland soldiers, killed at will. I'm guessing, why would a President sit back and watch all of these things happen, going back to the speculation that you made? Yeah, well, one thing which is very clear is the agenda being pushed by the worries administration. Nobody is oblivious of the fact that Mr. President went to Mali and told people, which was reported, that Nigeria is home for the Fulani's. That all Fulani's in West Africa are one. And so therefore, they do not speak banking. Will you help me how the borders were thrown open clearly? And not only that, we knew all the efforts being made to ensure that the occupied parts of Nigeria, then started from Ruga, you know, up to Katu colony, up to the resistance move in the National Assembly to create for the people going to annex all the borders on the lands in order to create settlement, including the banks, to create settlements, Fulani's Katu war. Nobody can deny this. The is all coming together now. And people are beginning to move there. I wonder when people talk about the issue of Christianity, the issue facing us currently, or the issue of the curate. The country we are, Mr. President, we've been threatened with that. The government has been threatened with that. And we've seen the energy going to Abuja. Schools have been closed down. And people are talking about Muslim thing. I see this terrorist trying to destroy a country. People cares about anybody in the job. We have come to a state where the primary focus of the government, which is security, rights and property, is no longer being done. So within that context, one can understand the position of the National Assembly who either at all have been very, very compliant, be useful agents for the Bwari administration to turn around and abandon the Additi Post threatening impeachment, threatening reality. They are actually afraid of being in Abuja for fear of being kidnapped. But Mr. President, to be threatening with feedback, and then they were moving to Khudde, the correct path to center, with infinity, you know, it's backfliming. It is backfliming. There's no other way to explain government's complacency other than to describe it or to maintain action or action as an attitude of passivity, of mutual difference or sometimes of code complicity. We have gone through this, we are told Tukano will do the job. We've gone to Tukano, nothing at that point. We are moving from frying pan to fire. Bwari inherited insecurity in the Northeast. That is security spread to Northwest. From Northwest is coming to the center of power. At what stage will Nigerians be concerned about what is being done to our country? Another country is being laid by Mr. President. Let me go to the political aspect of this. I know that the NNPP presidential candidate of Senator Rabiou Kwankwasou has spoken on this issue of impeachment. I'd like to quote him directly. He did say that he warned the National Assembly on this issue and he said that, I'd like to quote him, I do not know the facts that they have talking about the members of the National Assembly but as their former colleague, I want them to threat softly and they should not be in a hurry to rock the boat. What exactly did you think he meant? Because he has all kinds of political on the terms and subject to all kinds of interpretation. What would yours be? Yes, in my own interpretation, what can you say that an electoral process which certainly would lead to the termination of the lifetime of the Guari regime and therefore there is no need to rock the boat by impeaching him now to create another crisis, political crisis in the country. That's basically what NPP is referring to. It's referring to the electoral process. Apart from that, I don't even think they have the nonsense currently to impeach Mr. President. As it stands today, I don't think they have the nonsense. There are so many of the accolades to this National Assembly who in any case would frustrate it. I cannot see people like me, like Artiku, like Kinubu and others who are hoping to have an opportunity to become the president of the country through the bad lots who now support a move that would create a political crisis in the country. I don't think they would be able to do that now. But what I foresee is that what would actually lead to real impeachment is when a state of mangers, a market created in the country, when as a rock is attacked in a way that the legislators not reasonably fit in the National Assembly again, and they could take serious risk of a security breakdown in the seat of Abuja, which is the seat of power, then that probably may end up in impeachment. I don't think the current trade will be impeached. Does he have to get to that? Because it's one thing to say well maybe because it's hitting hard or it's hitting close to home now and that's why members of the National Assembly seem to be acting. Do maybe Kachiku, who is the presidential candidate for the ADC, had called what happened on the floor of the National Assembly self-serving. He's looking at the political undertone of this. He's saying that look, this man are doing this because it now affects them. What about when it was hitting other people? But I'm still asking my first question. Why do we have to wait for things to get so bad for us to finally declare a state of emergency? And when we talk about states of emergency, let's not forget that that means that all political or electoral powers one way or the other will be jettisoned and we're talking about a military takeover of sorts, you know, when we ask for a state of emergency if we are looking at it in its entirety. No, not necessarily. It doesn't have to be to military taking over power. The state of emergency can be declared by any government or the president where there are serial witches, you know, to the security of lives and property. And if in their view, in line with that constitution, the Nigerian police force cannot manage it, then they are likely going to incite the military in. And that will be under a state of emergency. Otherwise, the military has no ability to enter this emergency. And that is the situation where as many people think that these guys are no longer bluffing, these terrorists are no longer bluffing. We have seen the incapacity or have security forces unable to contain them. In this tendency and this trend continues, the most likely mood is that if there is an attack on, if there is a serious attack on us, then that will create a serious state of emergency in our country. And if that should happen, that may also affect the political processes, the electoral processes in the country. And if that happens, that may govern all the politicians in the country. We need to find a solution to this problem. If we have a problem, we can start president, maybe you are the problem. Maybe you need to step aside. So that will be a formal resolution. And I think that is when impeachment is likely. Currently, I don't think this national assembly can impeach the president. They are too compliant. But I reject the point that they have not been complaining about threats to the lives of other people. They are not unhappy. And they didn't take a step to ensure that something that is different in the situation, beyond the talk show. So because of that, we can condemn them for that. Now, the chicken has come to us, they have now realized that they could also be victims of many Nigerians, thousands of Nigerians have been victimized. So I don't necessarily believe that this will come to fruition. I think it's just a warning. And eventually, we may never get to that point. It depends on how party terrorists can create chaos. We keep talking about solutions here. We keep saying that, oh, well solutions have to be provided. I have sat through two years of speaking with different security operatives, security experts, and they have come up with very doable ideas and solutions that can help the insecurity in the country. But then there's always a recurrent statement about the political will on the path of Mr. President. But let's not just put the president here on the chopping board. Of course, the governments that we have, it's a three-tier government. We have of course the executive, we have the legislature, we have the judiciary. And in terms of issues like this, judiciary might not necessarily be called to be part of this. But the legislature and the executive have a serious role to play. And you did mention that there's been a lot more talk-shopping than getting or pushing the hand of the president. So could it be again that maybe because the legislature has not been taken seriously by the executive, or maybe the legislature has made itself not as serious to be taken serious by Mr. President, hence the talk-shopping. Again, I'm asking you, how do we get that political will out of Mr. President, who keeps travelling out for every time, if there's some hit or insecurity or kidnapping, and even the body language does not seemingly be that of a person who's interested in what's happening. Where do you fish out the political will from that kind of person? Yeah, in relation to political will, I doubt you would ever care about that Mr. President. He has already told the whole country that he's trying, he wants us to go. The question is, should he be pushed, or be allowed to work in line with the electoral country? The problem of political will has something to do with his own personal relationship with the people who create the problems in the country. Nobody can deny the fact that they know where these people are. The government cannot deny knowing where the terrorist is. We allow this thing to first come up to this point. I remember clearly Nasser El-Rufai in his post on, did he tell the whole country that he even paid to these terrorists outside the community who are robbing and who are cloning the resources of this country and killing our people. He openly admitted to that so he knew where they are. We also know that the former president also had a meeting with the people he consigned you know the terrorist, you know with the Nigerian state. But again, they met somewhere. We knew that Tony also had meetings with them in the past and we know that his publicity of and of the people himself have the meeting and won't carry peace with these people. They are fully involved in negotiation. We cannot deny knowing where they are. That's what. Number two when you look at the issue of the list of sponsors of terrorism who were he? United Arab Emirates came up to the list. We were told that we have about names of for the people who are sponsors of terrorism you know by the preparation but they did not do anything since we are on strike at that point sitting at that point in time. Now cuts resumed, nothing happened. Cuts have been sitting on the temporary list of sponsors of terrorism have not been arranged in court. So there is a lack of political will stemming from an attitude of passivity, mutual difference and court continuity. These are the facts as they stand to be. He might be. Finally, before I let you go Mr. Showamy, what is the fate of the avid Nigerian? I'll tell you where I'm going with this. Recently the Honourable Minister of Information Mr. Lai Muhammad has come out to say they will be meting out sanctions to daily trust of course and the BBC which is a British broadcasting media house who put out a documentary. I'm sure that you've seen that documentary. It's out in the public space talking to these so called terrorists mostly those who have laid down their weapons. Also getting down to the crux of the matter the story under this what is causing the terrorism that we have in the country. Now if outsiders like you mentioned the UAE they were very generous to us to give us a list of people who they call sponsors of these terrorists in our country. That's the UAE. Of course the British have also come up with a documentary telling us what is at the root of the problem and why we're facing what we're facing today. And of course daily trust has brought up their own and our government is saying that these people will be sanctioned for going to the bottom of this matter and trying to make sense of it all where does that leave the avid Nigerian if others outsiders are very interested in what we're dealing with. What we're suffering from most interested than the people who call themselves our government. What does the future hold for us? It all shows you know look when I have approached the people I'm going to have the response of the minister for the mission. I laughed my head off I laughed and laughed and so on. Why are they irritated? They've been rattled by the disclosure of made by that terrorist who was honored with a chief tantric right to go by the air mayor of Nassirabad in Sanfara. Now we all know these things they spread to heart they weren't anything about it the man in question that terrorist in question was declared wanted by the Nigerian police force and right in the nose of the Nigerian state the same terrorist was being honored with a chief tantric right to go by the air mayor. That is what the addressing how come they meet the arrest of that man before giving that chief tantric right to go. If you start complaining about PPC who in any case all the people who interrogate the man to find out what is happening where he has found himself as a non-regroup person who is a terrorist and I am saying that he is trying to help the Nigerian state with total wrong investigation so that we understand what the problem is why they are fighting and I am going to continue to resolve is that what Mr. Daikimame is complaining about I feel sorry for this country Well I want to say thank you for being part of the conversation we are helping that something positive comes out of this we appreciate you for being here well thank you all for staying with us we will take a short break now when we return we will be discussing the battles within the PDP in a born state stay with us