SHAIBU’S GALLANT GAMBLE

The impeachment of governors or deputies should be completed by prosecuting them, argues Josef Omorotionmwan

THE impeachment of the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, is doomsday foretold. Many saw it coming.

For Hon. Okogbe Donald Ojemeh (Akoko-Edo II), it was an opportunity to further demonstrate that in the worst of times, even a witch could have friends. Hear Ojemeh: “The Secrecy Oath law of Edo State was cited. Because it is a law written down, it makes it a crime. … Only a court of law can convict for crime. And Section 6 of the Constitution vests judicial powers on the courts. And by my own understanding, the Panel is not a court. So, if a court of law has not convicted a man of a criminal offence, you cannot, … I believe strongly that we do not have that power to now impeach on what does not amount to a crime”.

Parliamentary debates require that you provide reasons in support of your argument for a viewpoint. Here, Hon. Ojemeh shows clearly that a wrong reason is better than no reason at all. That’s one way of explaining why he was unable to sway his colleagues to go with him on that long journey of putting the cart before the horse. 

Elsewhere, impeachment is not a conviction. Neither is it an end in itself but rather a means to an end.

Section 308 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 is relevant here. This section provides immunity from prosecution for Presidents and Vice Presidents as well as Governors and their Deputies while their tenures last. 

The Constitution, however, foresees a situation where these officials who have been properly insulated from prosecution while in office, could commit some gross misconducts. The same Constitution, therefore, goes ahead to prescribe how to deal with them in the event of such misbehaviours.

In the case of the governor and his deputy, the entire Section 188 with 13 sub-sections, is devoted to their removal from office. The process of removing the official is what has come to be known as impeachment.

Impeachment is just a half-way house. It is not the end of the journey. When the governor or deputy governor is removed from office, he becomes an ordinary citizen like the rest of us. He is no longer covered by the immunity offered by Section 308 of the Constitution. 

The intendment of the law is that he can now be dragged to court to answer for the crimes committed while in office – when he was immune from prosecution.

To our utter consternation, people just stop at the half-way house of impeachment without carrying through to the second level of prosecuting the offender to account for his iniquities. 

It does not bother them that in case after case, the offender goes to court and the impeachment is overturned. In most of those cases, this comes long after the tenure is over. It, however, just enables the supposed offender to collect the dubious pensions.

This game that the Executives play must stop. If a man has offended the law of the land to warrant his being removed from office, we must also take him through the entire stretch of the law for him to make remediations for his transgressions.

Back to Edo State. We have a new Deputy Governor. He is Omobayo Marvelous Godwins (37), from Ibillo in Akoko-Edo Local Government. We hear he is a smooth operator, who brings skills and dexterity into the mix. He probably runs shifts in his political career: At day, he could be PDP and at night, LP.

Has the homeboy gone home? Everything was happening faster than the speed of sound.  Shaibu’s response to his impeachment was well crafted. 

That he has his good people of Edo State also presupposes that he must have some bad people of Edo State. All the same, no finger has been placed on the number of good and bad people he now has. Both are left to our conjecture. But let’s be positive and remain on the good side. In the beginning, he was good. He enjoyed the largest following. The eight years in the Edo State House of Assembly were years of glory. Comrade Adams Oshiomhole’s Constituency – the entire state – was his constituency.

In those turbulent years, he was Chief Commander of the troops at the Assembly. He knew when to carry the maze and run with it; and he also knew when it was not appropriate to do so presumably. On such other occasions, at the blink of an eye, the able-bodied men (ABM) jumped down from the gallery and from every hiding place to do battle with the other side. He was in charge!

By this time, Shaibu had pleasantly earned his promotion to the House of Representatives, and he could have easily been on top of any popularity test of “My good people of Edo State” on Oshiomhole’s side. Act II: Scene I – It was not by accident that while Shaibu was in Abuja, Oshiomhole defied all odds to bring him back to Edo to be Deputy Governor to Godwin Obaseki. The big lesson: Your best friend today could become your worst enemy tomorrow. 

With time, the relationship between Oshiomhole and Obaseki went awry. Shaibu switched his 100 percent attention to Obaseki. Naturally, more than 50 percent of Shaibu’s good people of Edo State turned bad. 

There is a group of Edolites out there. Call them enlightened despots, if you wish. In a 24-member House of Assembly, 14 of those who won election in 2019 were constructively prevented from inauguration. 

They see Shaibu’s hand in that invidious act. It may take some time, but vengeance is all they have. Need we add that they and their constituents who were denied the representation they earned have since exited the list of “Shaibu’s good people”?

Shaibu was not going to worry about a thing. After all, what he lost from Oshiomhole, he was getting from Obaseki. On the Obaseki side, he was the Supreme Commander. In return, he had a good hold of the Obaseki administration. Have we forgotten soon that he was in-charge of the Health and Social Welfare Ministry; Local Government; Sports and Youth Development; and he was a player in the Bendel Insurance team?

We may never know what makes chief executives unwilling to have their deputies succeed them. The moment it became clear that Shaibu wanted to succeed Obaseki, the bottom fell off in their relationship. And clearly, he no longer has any good people of Edo State anywhere. Rather, he occupies a big bush of all snakes!

Yes, Shaibu is ambitious. He is loyal only to his ambition and that might have blinded him to the fact that some of his latter-day co-diners are also desperately wicked!

Charles Dickens (1812 – 1870) summarises his present situation most succinctly: “Alas, his gallant gamble has ended in the dust!”

Omorotionmwan writes from Canada