The Speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly, Abdulkareem Lawan, has dismissed the rumoured impeachment process initiated against Kashim Shettima, the state governor, saying it was a mere machination of political interest working to further complicate issues with the troubled state.
Lawan commented that it was obvious that many of the lawmakers desire deeply and are working towards the return of peace to the state and would not get involved in any act that would cause a breach of the peace.
Warning that any impeachment process against the governor would only continue ruining the peace of the state, Lawan pointed out that there is no reason whatsoever to warrant impeaching of the governor.
Lawan made the comments in a telephone chat with journalists. The Speaker is currently in Saudi Arabia, where he is on the Lesser Hajj pilgrimage. He accused former governor of the state, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the person behind the impeachment propaganda.
Sheriff recently announced his readiness to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC) to join another party.
“The leadership and more than two-third of members of the Assembly are fully behind Governor Kashim Shettima, and our major preoccupation at the moment is how to restore peace in the state and put an end to killings, rather than any political upheaval,” Lawan said.
He dismissed a national newspaper report credited to House Majority Leader, Idrissa Jidda that most members were defecting to the PDP with Sheriff as entirely his own personal opinion.
According to Lawan, this does not reflect the position of any of the remaining 27 members in the Assembly and the leadership.
The Speaker said Jidda “told a big lie that is just his opinion.”
“As we speak right now, I am with 19 members of the Assembly here in Makkah, 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,” he said.
He revealed that the leadership and members of the Borno State House of Assembly are 100 per cent behind 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,” Lawan assured.
“If what I read in the newspaper was what the leader said, then he told an outright lie. 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 destructions in Borno State and not politics of 2015.”
