Elder statesman, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai has given reasons some members of the National Assembly will backpedal in the reported plan to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to him, some of the lawmakers will need the help of the party and the support of their governors and the President in their bid to return for another term and so would not want to involve themselves in the impeachment processes.
Yakassai also spoke of the trial of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, alleging that Buhari is aware of the actions of the police and is using the Inspector General of Police, IGP, Ibrahim Idris to trouble the Senate.
Speaking on the alarm raised by a former President Olusegun Obasanjo that President Buhari is trying to harm him, Yakassai told Sun that Obasanjo may go through the same trial as Saraki.
He said, “If the police can go and arrest a senator and put him in their wagon, isn’t that enough indication that a lot can come thereafter. Now, the Senate President is placed in a situation where he has been implicated by some suspects who are under pressure from the police.
On the impeachment threat by the legislature, Yakasai said, “Minority would have their say, but the majority would have their way. What is the position of the majority in the National Assembly? It’s what we should see.
“Everybody must not think alike, but then we have to look at the position of the majority. The joint meeting of the National Assembly has given us an idea of where the pendulum is tilting towards in the coming days.
“The problem with the National Assembly in this regard is this…the president, by Obasanjo’s declaration, is the leader of the party. And the governors in their respective states are the leaders of the party.
“Now, we are approaching the primaries of the parties where some of the members would like to be endorsed. So, I will not be surprised if some of them who are looking for support from either the president or the governors are unwilling to partake in any move to check some of these things.
Of Obasanjo and the allegation of pending harassment by the Buhari government, Yakasai said, “If his alarm was before the Senate President’s episode, I would have held some reservation regarding it. But you remember that the Senate President on the floor of the Senate indicated that armed robbers arrested in Kwara State were being transferred to Abuja.
“He also alerted the Senate that he learnt from the governor of Kwara that they were being forced to implicate him. And a few days afterwards, the Senate President was invited by the police and the police said that it was in connection with the armed robbery incident.
“Ordinarily, I doubt that a man in the person of the Senate President, with amount of privileges and resources at his disposal long even becoming the Senate president and also taking into consideration also the resources he must have inherited from his father, the reputation of his family and his own reputation as a former governor, that he would allow himself to get involved in armed robbery.
“In addition, you would recall that the Inspector General of Police had recently said that the Senate president did not like him. I read it in the papers.
“I am aware that Obasanjo is openly opposed to the second term of Buhari and some of the government functionaries, particularly those who are connected to the next election – the police, the security operatives, INEC – have blind loyalty to the person of President Buhari.
“I would not be surprised, therefore, if the alarm raised by Obasanjo becomes true. I now tend to believe him rather than disbelieve him in the light of what has just happened to the Senate President.”
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