It is the position of the law that a party who brazenly breaches or violently violates a section of the Constitution in order to perform an illegality should not be allowed to rely on another section of the same Constitution or any other law in order to legitimatize his illegal and unconstitutional act.
In politics, stuffs happen. In Kogi, abracadabra happened. It is only in Kogi that a sitting Senator can outrun kidnappers and assassins and speedily climb a tree, stay there for 11 hours and come down to trek to safety. It is only in Kogi State that a man campaigned for governorship energetically for months throughout the state, voted for himself and died immediately after that. In the election, he scored the majority of the votes, but his election was declared inconclusive, foisting on the nation a lacuna which our laws never anticipated. His running mate could not take over from him because he was not yet the Governor-elect. Our laws made provision for the Deputy Governor-elect to take over from the Governor-elect in a situation that the Governor-elect dies or resigns after winning election, but before being sworn in, it did not make provision for when a gubernatorial candidate dies after an inconclusive election.
Such lacuna was filled with a young political gladiator from Kogi called Yahaya Bello. He contested the primary election with Prince Abubakar Audu and came second. When Prince Audu died, the party, under the leadership of John Odigie Oyegun, selected him to be the flag-bearer in the run off election which he won resoundingly and became Governor Yahaya Bello.
This governor started his regime having problems with the choice of deputy governor from day one. The running mate of Prince Audu, Hon. James Faleke, simply refused to run with him in the remaining election. He felt he was robbed the governorship position as he expected the party to back him to take over from Audu. The party did not back him and unfortunately the court did not back him too, so he backed out.
This created room for the governor to appoint another associate named Simon Achuba to become his deputy. He was unanimously approved by the House of Assembly to become Yahaya’s deputy. Unfortunately again, after a while, a bewildered nation rose to a rude shock as Yahaya’s deputy screamed that Yahaya was planning to kill him. That he has not been paid his salaries and allowances for a while. That Yahaya is corrupt among other grievous allegations. To make matters worse, he did not resign and Yahaya has an election at hand. In the re-election bid of Yahaya, the voice of his deputy matters. The deputy governor is clothed with immunity and his office is shielded by law from being arbitrarily terminated by the governor. He has become the troublesome tse-tse fly that is perching on the scrotum. Kill it! trouble; leave it! “Wahala”. The only way out was impeachment.
Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution is very clear on the process of removing a deputy governor. Signature of one-third of the members of the House of Assembly is required to serve the deputy governor with notice of allegations of misconduct against him. Fourteen days after the presentation of the notice of allegations to the Speaker for transmission to the deputy governor, the House shall resolve by motion of two-thirds majority that the allegations shall be investigated. Within seven days of the motion, the Chief Judge of the state shall appoint a panel of seven persons of proven integrity to investigate the allegations. Where the panel reports to the House of Assembly that the allegation has not been proved, no further proceedings shall be taken in respect of the matter. However, where the report of the Panel is that the allegation against the holder of the office has been proved, then within 14 days of the receipt of the report, the House of Assembly shall consider the report, and if by a resolution of the House of Assembly supported by not less than two-thirds majority of all its members, the report of the Panel is adopted, then the holder of the office shall stand removed from office as from the date of the adoption of the report. None of these proceedings shall be entertained or questioned in any court.
In the Kogi impeachment debacle, the deputy governor was impeached on Friday October 18, 2019 with unanimous vote of all the members of the House of Assembly. The deputy governor cried foul, insisting that the seven-man panel completely exonerated him. He headed for the court. If his allegation is true, then the governor’s camp cannot capitalise on Section 188(10) to legitimatize the impeachment, having violated Section 188(8) as enunciated in paragraph one.
But curiously, the inheritor of the removal of the deputy governor, Edward David Onoja, who was sworn in as the new deputy governor on October 21, insinuated on Channels Television on October 23, that the seven-man panel report being bandied in the press may be different from the one which the House of Assembly received from the seven-man panel which they acted on. To make the matter more confusing, the same Chief Judge, Nasir Ajanah, who set up the seven-man panel whom the former deputy governor claimed exonerated him, is the same Chief Judge who swore in the former Chief of Staff of Kogi State as the new deputy governor. Isn’t this a political abracadabra?
The parties are in court and everybody is eager to see how it is resolved. I was passing through Kogi State one certain time and my aide engaged me about Kogi. He said, Oga, these people often claim that they are Christians and Moslems, but the truth is that they are neither Christians nor Moslems. I got curious and asked, which one are they? He answered very thoughtfully, “Oga, na only them know». Honestly, if you ask me how the Kogi impeachment debacle will be resolved, I will quickly reply, “Oga, na only them know”.