Initiative Condemns Plot To Impose Leadership On 10th NASS

Democracy Watch Initiative has condemned the arbitrary abuse of constitutionalism manifesting in the handling of the leadership issue of the 10th National Assembly by certain interests.

A press statement issued by the secretary of the initiative, Lawal Rabiu Tinka said the act is a total disrespect for the democratic delineation of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial organs of government.

It said the impunity must stop, while calling on all Nigerians to rise and get involved in this struggle to free our country and our democracy from this emerging dictatorship.

“We find it disheartening that the current executive arm of government, by its recent actions or complicit silence, appears bent on dwarfing the other arms of government by arbitrarily abusing the amplitude and plenitude of privileges allowed to it.

“We are worried also that while the principle and practice of the separation of powers, is a major hallmark of democratic governance, players in the current administration, in open display of recklessness, are working on violating this major pillar, thereby threatening orderly society and potentially placing democracy and the Nigerian state at imminent risk.

“Whereas in practice, each organ is constitutionally barred from encroaching on the boundaries of another organ, we note a rising level of intensification of the desperation of the executive arm of this government to impose a leadership on the legislature by every means and tactics.

“This dangerous desperation has led to devising various schemes to deny major aspirants to the Senate Presidency and Speakership of the House of Representatives their constitutional rights to seek election through a democratic due process.

“These devices, we note, include plans to forcefully deny them and their perceived supporters access to the Assembly on the day of inauguration, harassing and intimidating them through stage managed arrest and most recently securing a frivolous court injunction against the aspiration of Abdul’aziz Yari in particular.

“We fear that if such level of arrogant dictatorship, autocratic arbitrariness, and blatant impunity are left unchecked, Nigeria’s democracy would collapse totally under this administration before it clocks one year.

“Regrettably, this hallowed principle appears to mean little to the current Nigerian political leadership whose contempt for legislative independence and autonomy is symptomatic of the dangerous disdain for the rule of law by the likes of Kashim Shettima, the Vice President of Nigeria and his ilk occupying the highest public offices in the country today,” the statement said.

It also called the attention of Nigeria’s friends in the international community to the emerging trend in Nigeria and call on them to be vigilant as to the direction our country and our democracy are headed.