Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, has thrown his weight behind the move by senators to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari.
The writer also supported the six weeks ultimatum given to President Buhari by the lawmakers to address the issue of insecurity in the country.
Soyinka declared his support for the national assembly during an interactive session organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Abeokuta Club, on Tuesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
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The session also had foremost Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana and the Registrar of the Joint Administration and Matriculation Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede.
The session titled “Good governance or mis-governance: The contract called democrac”, also had
i Barrister Gbenga Adeoye, a businessman, Ogo-Oluwa Bankole; and the spokesman of the Electricity Distribution Companies, Sunday Oduntan, as panellists.
Soyinka, who moderated the session, emphasized that the President should be impeached for breaching the contract of democracy.
He said, “Democracy indicates a contract, that is why the candidate puts on a manifesto. On the basis of that manifesto, the candidate is either accepted or rejected.
“Very often, the grounds for breach of contract, I think we all agree, is mis-governance and one of the ways of breaking this kind of contract we know even before the duration of a contract is known as impeachment.
“The reason we will go by some legislators to impeach the President who is the head of government. In fact, one cleric has gone even further.
“He believes that the impeachment should take place not in the legislative home but in the bush with the kidnappers and he appealed to the kidnappers to quicken the process by impeaching the President and take him away and some of his aides and one or two governors.”
Soyinka also faulted the move by the President, who has performed abysmally to anoint a successor.
“In any democracy, any president, prime minister or whatever is entitled to one vote. We are not saying we should disenfranchise somebody because they are on top of governance.
“They had their right to campaign for any candidate they like but there is nothing in any constitution that I know of, in any democratic constitution, which says that the head of government should appoint his or her successor.
“I am not aware of it and this is a head of governance who is generally agreed, I believe, as having failed, having misgoverned to the point that impeachment is being considered.
“I hear the governors go to this individual, go to this failure and say to him ‘please give us your successor.’
“Many of us in this country, including governors, including chairmen of local governments, what comprehension they have of this process called democracy because what these governors are telling us is that after a failure has occupied a seat of government for eight years, that failure should give us another failure for another eight years.”
Soyinka urged the governors to stop desecrating democracy by enthroning a dynasty of failure.
On his part, Falana corroborated the submission of Soyinka on the need to stop the abuse of democratic process, while decrying the imposition of leaders on Nigerians.
DAILY REPORT recalls that the minority caucus of the Senate, last week, demanded for President Buhari to tackle the insecurity in the country head-on or face impeachment.
The lawmakers, who chanted ‘Buhari Must Go’, staged a walkout during plenary, issuing the President Six weeks to fix the country.
