Nigerian Nobel laureate, Professor Femi Soyinka, on Tuesday, backed the six weeks ultimatum given to the President, Muhammadu Buhari, by some federal lawmakers to find a solution to terrorism or be impeached.
Soyinka spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun State, during an interactive session organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Abeokuta Club.
He condemned a situation in Nigeria, where a failure, who has occupied a seat of government for eight years, would “give us another failure for another eight years”.
The session, which had a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Femi Falana, the Registrar of the Joint Administration and Matriculation Board, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, among others, had as its theme: “Good governance or mis-governance: The contract called democracy.”
Recall that some Senators and members of the House of Representatives elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had last week handed down the ultimatum over lingering insecurity in Nigeria.
Soyinka, who was the session’s moderator, insisted that Buhari should be impeached because he had breached the contract of democracy.
Soyinka said, “Democracy indicates a contract, that is why the candidate puts on a manifesto. On the basis of that manifesto, the candidate is either accepted or rejected.
“Very often, the grounds for breach of contract, I think we all agree, is mis-governance and one of the ways of breaking this kind of contract we know even before the duration of a contract is known as impeachment.
“The reason we will go by some legislators to impeach the President who is the head of government. In fact, one cleric has gone even further. He believes that the impeachment should take place not in the legislative home, but in the bush with the kidnappers and he appealed to the kidnappers to quicken the process by impeaching the President and taking him away and some of his aides and one or two governors.
“Many of us in this country, including governors, including chairmen of local governments, what comprehension they have of this process called democracy, because what these governors are telling us is that after a failure has occupied a seat of government for eight years, that failure should give us another failure for another eight years.”