Impeachment: The moves that may save Al-Makura

The sudden appearance of principal officers of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly led by its speaker, Musa Ahmed Mohammed, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja Thursday night had caused panic in the state and beyond. The panic was somehow justified because of speculations that the unseen hand of the Presidency may be aiding the […]

The sudden appearance of principal officers of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly led by its speaker, Musa Ahmed Mohammed, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja Thursday night had caused panic in the state and beyond. The panic was somehow justified because of speculations that the unseen hand of the Presidency may be aiding the altercation rocking the north central state.
The exit of another All Progressives’ Congress (APC) governor recently through the same impeachment process in Adamawa State a week earlier, which was alleged to have presidential backing, was enough to cause jitters in Nasarawa. Also, the fact that the visit was coming a day after the members sneaked into Lafia, the state capital, where they reconvened under tight security to direct the state Chief Judge to constitute an investigative panel to look into the issues under contention, were signs that the visit may be fatal.
However, fillers from the Abuja meeting, which was also attended by the National Security Adviser (NSA), Col Sambo Dasuki and the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN),  suggest that the embattled governor may get a reprieve after all, even if it is temporary. 
 The Villa meeting was reported to have lasted barely two hours, but it provided a balm that has started relieving the sores that festered for about a month, the last two weeks of which Al-Makura spent in Abuja, running from door-to-door to grab at any straw for survival.
The meeting which held behind closed doors, may have left many questions unanswered, but the timing and the fact that it held with the knowledge of the public has compelled many to speculate that the president may have decided that the brakes be applied to save the governor. 
House minority leader, Tanko Maikatako (APC, Lafia-central), said he was certain of what would happen, explaining that “and that is, that the president presided over a meeting to lead to the final resolution of the crisis in the state.”
He added that: “I don’t see the president presiding over a meeting that will lead to fuelling the crisis in Nasarawa State. Mr. President is a lover of peace and I am sure he intervened to save Nasarawa from the crisis. It is a meeting that will bring about the way forward, I think. The president can’t tell them to come back to Nasarawa and add fuel to the fire,” Maikatako said.
 The speaker also said it was a family meeting and that he had no mandate to disclose details on the matter.
This is just as presidency sources said a number of factors may have informed the application of the brakes in the plot. First, sources said the violent protest, which claimed two lives in the state following the commencement of the impeachment proceedings, may have informed the presidential intervention. It was learnt that before the meeting started, the NSA drilled the lawmakers for an hour, asking if they knew the security implication of their action on the entire state as well as Abuja, since Nasarawa shares the longest border with the FCT.
Sources also said the governor is very close to the minister of defence, General Aliyu Gusau (rtd) and that the latter is wont to speak to the  president on the need to soft-pedal on the development in Nasarawa state.  There is also the alleged “strong business ties’’ between former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, and Al-Makura. Sources said both Gusau and Alamieyeseigha may have chipped in words on the embattled governor’s behalf. 
Another saving grace for Al-Makura, Weekly Trust learnt, was the alleged cordial relationship between the first lady Dame Patience Jonathan and one of the governor’s wives. Hajiya Salamatu Al-Makura, the governor’s first wife is widely regarded as the favourite of all the wives of the governors to the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan. Only last year, Hajiya Salamatu represented Dame Patience at a week-long women convention in Europe, sparking off a row within the club of first ladies over the president’s wife’s preferential treatment of Salamatu. 
Dame Patience is currently in Namibia for a week-long conference. She took with her, Salamatu, whose loyalty is said to be 100 percent. The godmother/goddaughter tie, sources said, may have worked in Al-Makura’s favour.
 However,  despite these advantageous links, the state Chief Judge curiously went ahead Friday morning, to constitute a panel to look into the alleged breaches by the governor barely a day after the Aso Villa meeting.
The development gave rise to speculations that the Villa meeting was just a mere window dressing. But analysts were quick to dismiss the fears, noting that the president would not risk more tension, especially with the recent bomb blasts in Kaduna, involving an APC leader, General Muhammadu Buhari, by encouraging the process to go on.
 A source said by mandating the Chief Judge to institute a probe panel, the matter has already left the domain of the legislative arm. “The members cannot undo what they have already done. They have served notice to the judiciary to commence investigation into the alleged breaches; that is how far they can go. The judiciary have to take over from there,” a source said.
The house, on July 14 reconvened from an on-going recess at an emergency session, and passed a motion of impeachment, alleging various breaches of the provisions of the constitution against Al-Makura, including misappropriation of funds from 2011 and 2014, as well as alleged gross misconduct and abuse of office processes. Twenty of the 24 lawmakers, all of them of the PDP, signed the impeachment notice, containing 16-count charges, which copy is yet to be made public.               
The lawmakers also passed a motion for the house to do substituted service on the governor if he could not be reached for service by the clerk who was so directed after the speaker, Musa Ahmed Mohammed ruled on the house proceedings which lasted about 12 minutes. 
The lawmakers have since published the impeachment notice containing the 16-count charges against Al-Makura, after they made frantic efforts for three days to serve the notice on the governor. Al-Makura is yet to respond to the allegations, as his team is picking holes in the substituted service.
Contrary to the alleged involvement of the presidency in the saga from the beginning, Weekly Trust learnt that members were just acting the script of key Abuja based politicians from the state.
“They have not been able to really penetrate the Villa as the public were made to believe”, a source said. “I know that most meetings championed by the Abuja politicians from the state are with a key stakeholder from the south-south close to the president. So all the encouragement so far has not exceeded that limit,” he added.
Weekly Trust learnt from inside sources that the president had listened to them at the Thursday meeting and asked them to go and “resolve the issues at home.”  
“The President is not unaware of the security implication of the move as the protests that trailed the efforts indicated. Nasarawa is one of the closest states to Abuja and it has the history of been volatile and a spill over in the event of a breakdown of law into the FCT cannot be ruled out. The president can’t risk that as a peace-loving person,” he noted. “Then what are the issues they are bringing to the table in the first place? The president might also consider the issues as not worth the effort,” he added.
 Deputy Governor Luka unsettled
Meanwhile, the Villa meeting may have unsettled the deputy governor, Dameshi Barau Luka, whose March 3 defection to the PDP provided the platform for a PDP takeover after the impeachment of Al-Makura. Sources said Luka has knocked at every door between late June when the plot began to thicken, and the period of the commencement of the impeachment proceedings. 
The deputy governor, who has not entered his office since his defection, only this week, hoisted a new PDP flag in front of his office, after the old one wore out, in what triggered speculations that he was preparing to take over as governor.
He is believed to have already commenced the process of appointing a cabinet, and may have taken advantage of Al-Makura’s troubles to begin enjoying loyalty from within the governor’s cabinet. 
Sources had said in one of the clandestine meetings where the impeachment plot was delivered for members to execute, Luka was tipped to succeed Al-Makura to complete the remaining months of the tenure, and will not contest to return in Government House Lafia, in 2015. Luka, the sources said further, will pick his deputy from the house. But within the PDP, sources said Luka is not one to trust as he may betray the arrangement.
“If he can betray Al-Makura, I don’t see any arrangement he won’t betray,” a source said.
But Danjuma Joseph, the deputy governor’s aide denied that his boss had such ambitions, adding that “2015 is by the corner, he will contest for governorship on the platform of the PDP, against the APC.”
Al-Makura may fire “enemies within”, relatives
Sources said the impeachment saga may have opened the governor’s eyes to “enemies within,” as well as his vulnerability because of the number of relatives in his administration. Some of his appointees have proven to be the real enemies in the camp, sources said, and not the PDP lawmakers in the assembly.
“You see, the lawmakers only helped the governor. They are the real friends; at least, they tell him where he is dirty, so he can wash. But those close to the governor will sanction and endorse any wrongdoing by the governor because of what they stand to benefit. Some of them aided him into this problem. The lawmakers are only opening his eyes,” a Government House source said.
Also, a key stakeholder, who spoke to Weekly Trust in confidence, said the governor had made himself more vulnerable from the beginning. “There were three options for him when he assumed power initially-he  had to either defect back to the PDP and be protected by the majorly PDP assembly and an equally PDP centre; get the members to join him in his party and if the two possibilities failed, strike an amicable working deal with them. Apparently, he did not do all this and the consequence is what we are seeing today,” he explained.
The source said the governor left his flanks open because he believed his performance is the only insurance he needs. “He feels the people would rise in his defence; yes they rose, but can they really save him? All the PDP federal government need do is to unleash its security apparatus on the state and the people would take cover.”
The source, who is a PDP stalwart from the state, also berated the members for not consulting with their constituencies and key stakeholders before taking the action. “Now they are in a dilemma because they did not consult widely before taking the decision. Their constituents are waiting for them; they cannot go back home immediately because of the fear of the unknown,” he said.