Impeachment: Nasarawa lawmakers ‘ignored’ Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan’s efforts to settle the dispute between the Nasarawa lawmakers and Governor Umaru Almakura were rejected by the PDP-dominated house of assembly, an APC member and minority leader of the legislature has said.

Mr Tanko Maikatako, who is in the same party with the governor, said he was surprised by the attitude of the PDP lawmakers.

“The president’s efforts toward peace were not successful due to selfishness among the lawmakers,” Maikatako, who represents Lafia Central constituency, told NAN in Lafia on Wednesday.

According to him, Jonathan had appealed to the lawmakers to opt for dialogue rather than impeaching Al-Makura, but that the legislators insisted on removing the governor.

“The president met with us and appealed to us to go back and meet with the governors to iron out the issues, but the members refused,” he said.

Maikatako said he was very surprised at that development.

“We don’t know why it happened that way. If the president himself, the PDP leader in the country, appeals to his colleagues to return to Nasarawa, meet the governor to iron out issues, they should have come back,” he opined.

Maikatako frowned at the attitude of his 20 colleagues and declared that their insistence on ignoring Jonathan’s peace offer snowballed into the political crisis.

“Their resolve to go ahead with the impeachment of Gov. Umaru Al-Makura was selfishly motivated,” said Maikatako, who claimed that the lawmakers did not have an iota of evidence to substantiate their claims against Al-Makura.

“They abandoned all the allegations they levelled against the governor; that means that the allegations were baseless. One can therefore conclude that the panel did its job.

“As it is, the lawmakers must come back. That was what Mr President advised them to do; they must meet the governor and iron out the issues,” he said.

He appealed to his colleagues to return back to the state to tackle issues that were beneficial and had direct bearing on the lives of the electorate “instead of looking for ‘every trick’ to oust the governor”.

“It is not too late for us to achieve much for our people. Let the law makers come back so that we can continue our work.

“There are lots of executive bills that are of immense benefit to the electorate. We resumed yesterday (Tuesday), but they are nowhere to be found,” he said.

The investigative panel set up by the chief judge, Justice Umaru Dikko, to investigate allegations of gross misconduct levelled against Al-Makura, on Tuesday dismissed the allegations for lack of evidence as the lawmakers refused to appear to substantiate their claims.