HeadlineBorno Assembly Speaker Dismisses Impeachment Threat Against Shettima

Borno Assembly Speaker Dismisses Impeachment Threat Against Shettima

SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, (THEWILL) – The threat of impeachment against the Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, has been dismissed as a farce and the machinations of some political interests working to further destabilise the state.

Dismissing the impeachment rumour Tuesday while speaking with journalists on phone from Saudi Arabia where he is presently performing the lesser Hajj, the Speaker of State House of Assembly, Hon. Abdulkareem Lawan, said it is glaring that majority of the members of the Assembly are fully committed to the return of peace to the state and would stand against any act that will further throw the already troubled state into chaos.

Maintaining that any impeachment process against Shettima would further draw the state backward, Lawan noted that the governor had done nothing to merit such treatment, insisting that the Assembly members and leadership are fully behind the governor.

Lawan said the impeachment process, alleged to be championed by the former governor of the state, Senator Ali Modu Sherrif , who recently announced his decision to defect from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), will fail.

“The leadership and more than two-thirds of members of the Assembly are fully behind Governor Kashim Shettima, and our major preoccupation at the moment is how to reclaim peace across the state and put an end to killings rather than any political undercut,” the Speaker said.

He also dismissed the reported claim of the Majority Leader of the Assembly, Idrissa Jidda, that most members were defecting to PDP with former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff as Jidda’s personal opinion , saying it does not reflect the position of the remaining 27 members and the leadership of the State Assembly.

On Monday , the former Governor, Modu Sheriff, was reported in a national newspaper as having been given a mandate and resources to plot the impeachment of Governor Shettima and also force Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe State into PDP from the APC or also have him impeached by the Yobe Assembly.

Jidda, who is Sherrif’s in- law , was also reported to have claimed that most members of the State Assembly were defecting from APC to with Modu Sheriff.

But the Assembly Speaker dismissed Jidda’s statement as “ a big lie”, saying “that is just his opinion.”
According to Lawan, “As we speak right now, I am with 19 members of the Assembly here in Mecca and all of us are not happy with the Majority Leader’s false claim. Other members have been calling me from Nigeria expressing their unhappiness. We all have the same position which is to fully stand by the Governor, Kashim Shettima.

“The leadership and members of the Borno State House of Assembly ‎are 100 percent behind Governor Kashim Shettima. we are not moving an inch to anywhere. We are fully behind him. I know the opinion of more than two-thirds of the members, I don’t know the opinion of the Majority Leader and he is free to go to any party of his choice. We are in a democracy but he shouldn’t speak for others, he should speak for himself.

“If what I read in the Daily Trust is what the Leader said, then he told an outright lie, this I can say. The issue he referred to is not even in our mindset. What dominates our minds as members is how to support the State and Federal Government to restore peace in Borno State. We are far more worried about the killings and destruction in Borno State and not politics of 2015.”

The Speaker added: “Most of us are here in Saudi Arabia and we are seriously praying for peace in Borno and for the stability of the State. This is what we have been doing since 2011 and this is what should agitate the mind of any true Borno man or any true Nigerian. What we want is stability. We have worked very closely with the Governor, we have supported him with the right appropriations to take measures that have helped in bringing relative peace to some parts of the State and we are working round the clock with the Governor to always create the legislative framework that the executive arm needs in our joint effort to address the insurgency problems. We are very worried about the deaths and destruction of communities. This is our major headache and not the issue of defection and 2015 and I am speaking the mind of most members. We work as a family, we are a team and I don’t see how we can now turn against Governor Kashim Shettima that has been doing everything humanly possible to address the problems since he came in.

“We have been having a very respectable and efficient legislature-executive relationship in Borno, we have not had a single misunderstanding, not a single one. Our prayers is that God grants us peace in Borno, Yobe and Nigeria as a whole. This is our concern as an Assembly that is responsible.”

The assertion of the Speaker was also corroborated by a member of the Assembly representing Dikwa State constituency, Mohammed Zakariyya.

Also speaking from Saudi Arabia, Zakariyya said: “Virtually every member was very unhappy with the Majority Leader for misleading the public based on his individual interest. We are not happy at all, we feel betrayed by our own colleague. Why should he say that when he knows this is not true and it is very impossible for us to do that?”

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