Posted by From LUCKY NWANKWERE, Abuja. on
The Action Congress (AC) has cautioned against the contemplated withdrawal of Constitutional immunity from the political office holders who currently enjoy it, saying it is capable of endangering Nigeria's democracy.
The Action Congress (AC) has cautioned against the contemplated withdrawal of Constitutional immunity from the political office holders who currently enjoy it, saying it is capable of endangering Nigeria's democracy.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also warned the Federal Government against seeking to score a cheap political point by backing the politically-correct but dangerous clamour to strip the president, vice-president, governors and their deputies of their constitutional immunity.
It said stripping the affected public office holders of immunity, which was designed by the framers of the Constitution to protect them from frivolous suits, would amount to a knee-jerk approach to the serious issues of corruption and abuse of office, which are driving the clamour for the removal of the immunity clause from the Constitution.
AC said the spate of corruption and gross abuse of office by state governors and others in the last political dispensation resulted from wrong choices and lack of transparency in governance.
'What should we to expect from a system that threw up known crooks and convicts as state Governors; a system that catapulted barely-literate artisans to principal officers in our National Assembly?'' the party queried.
It said corruption in Nigeria goes far beyond the 74 public office holders covered by the immunity clause, and that it is even more deep rooted among civil servants who do not enjoy any immunity, as well as ministers, commissioners and local government chairmen, just to name a few.
'The problem is not the Constitutional immunity enjoyed by the officials, but the quality of people holding such offices. How many of such categories of public office holders were indicted for corruption and abuse of office between 1979 and 1983 anyway? Did the Minister who was alleged to have misappropriated the 300 billion naira allocated for roads during the Obasanjo era enjoy Constitutional Immunity?," it asked.