The leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the ruling All Progressives Congress have exchanged words over the call for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari and the outcome of last Saturday’s by-elections.
PDP, in a statement issued yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary Kola Ologbondiyan, said the call for Buhari’s impeachment was a direct reflection of the mood and desires of Nigerians.
He said the call by its caucus in the House of Representatives asking Nigerians to direct their representatives across party lines to commence the impeachment process against President Buhari was constitutional and democratic.
The party in another statement also flayed the Presidency for expressing satisfaction with the performance of the APC in last Saturday’s by-elections, describing it as another desperate measure to divert public attention from its alleged manifest failures.
But APC, while reacting to the impeachment call in a statement, yesterday, by its Deputy National Publicity Secretary Yekini Nabena, said: “The APC has no intention of joining issues with a crass statement credited to Kingsley Chinda, a purported factional ‘leader’ of the PDP Caucus in the House of Representatives in which he has resorted to denigrate the office and person of the President by name-calling and insults.”
Nabena, who also reacted to the outcome of the by-elections in another statement, said: “The APC continues to advocate against election illegalities such as vote buying and other emerging frauds which the PDP and their agents are hell-bent on foisting on our electioneering processes.”
Meanwhile, the spokesman of the House of Representatives, Rep. Benjamin Kalu (APC, Abia,) has described the call for President Buhari’s removal as a lone agenda of Rep. Chinda (PDP, Rivers).
In a statement issued yesterday, Kalu said the opinion of a single member of the opposition party in the House had been misinterpreted as the voice of the entire House of Representatives when it does not represent the weakest opinion of the minority-caucus of the 9th House.
