Abuse of impeachment process

In Adamawa State, nine members of the House of Assembly launched the process when, on return from a three-week recess in April, convened at Government House in Yola to declare that they had impeached the Speaker, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri.Fintiri however resisted the process, coming less than a month to the end of its sittings; he […]

In Adamawa State, nine members of the House of Assembly launched the process when, on return from a three-week recess in April, convened at Government House in Yola to declare that they had impeached the Speaker, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri.
Fintiri however resisted the process, coming less than a month to the end of its sittings; he responded by declaring vacant the seats of members that spearheaded it.
Almost on cue, 12 members of the Kebbi State House of Assembly also announced they had removed the Speaker, Hassan Shalla and his deputy, Jafar Mohammed, in what they said was an emergency sitting presided over by one of them, Abubakar Sabo and elected Aminu Musa Habib Jega as the new Speaker. They didn’t stop there.  The following day, the legislators served the state governor, Saidu Usman Dakingari with a notice of impeachment.
At about the same time, the Speaker of Niger State House of Assembly, Adamu Usman, was also impeached by 18 of its 27 members, and Isa Kawu of Bida 1 State Constituency elected to replace him.
As in Kebbi, state legislators also moved to impeach the Niger State governor, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, which quickly ran into a stalemate.
Not to be left out in the impeachment fever, members of the Enugu State House of Assembly also commenced impeachment proceedings against Governor Sullivan Chime, over allegations of corruption and misconduct. Fourteen of the lawmakers, led by the Speaker, Eugene Odo, met and directed the Clerk of the Assembly to dispatch impeachment notice to the governor over Chime’s alleged bid to secure legislative approval for a N11billion loan when he had less than three weeks to serve in office.
Few weeks before the recent happenings, the Ondo State deputy governor, Ali Olanusi was removed through an impeachment process by the State House of Assembly, while in neighbouring Ekiti State, Governor Ayo Fayose and his deputy have been battling to save their political necks since a majority of members of the state legislators filed impeachment notices on them.
What is clear in all these, and particularly given the acrimony generated in the alleged imposition of candidates by governors in the last general elections, is that the motive is not so much as abiding by the provisions of the Constitution as settling political scores.
 But impeachment is not a light weapon to be wielded at the whim of those entrusted with the process.  If the trend is not nipped, it would make a mockery of the entire democratic process and some of its fine instruments for ensuring check and balance as the framers of the Nigerian Constitution intended.
Even when there are instances in which a public office holder may be deemed to have abused his office, the blunt hammer of impeachment should be considered only as a last resort when other options for correction have been applied without effect.
A case where a public servant like the state governor is elected into office by a majority of the electorate, only for a tiny clique to sit in politically-inspired judgement over his immediate political future leaves very much to be desired.
Which makes it imperative that the bar for impeachment, or what constitutes impeachable offences, has to be raised a lot higher than what is obtainable now, and the ambiguity over what grounds an official can be so removed should not be avenue for a few lawmakers to rig the process but for them to be more responsible when they decide to go down that road.