***Mulls Impeachment
From Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse
THE ongoing stand-off between the members of the Jigawa state house of assembly and the executive arm of government in the state have further degenerated to a point were members weighing the option of serving an impeachment notice to the governor, Alhaji Muhammed Badaru Abubakar.
The feud was heightened last week when members deliberated on the floor of the assembly of information they got over the alleged selling of the state’s valuable assets domicile in Lagos state.
The members have declared that there is every indication that the state liason office situated on Alhaji Ibrahim Waziri street of Ikoyi in Lagos state have been disposed-of without following due process.
A member representing Dutse constituency, Alhaji Musa Sule who conducted an interview with journalists yesterday explained that the sale of the said property is a flagrant abuse of the law which he said has contravened the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria.
Musa Sule who is also chairman house committee on appropriation expressed shock with the manner with which the alleged transaction took place.
According to him, “the deputy governor who is a lawyer ought to have known that what they have done has clearly violated the provision of the constitution and I assure you what they have done must be reversed wether they like it or not”, he declared.
“We are representing the people of the state and we would not fold our arms to let a few people to toy with the sensibilities of the people by selling our assets without duly consulting the legislature”, he stated.
He argued that the legislature are not in any way trying to undermine the works of the executive by embarking on fault finding exercise, “rather we are only doing our legislative oversight functions that the constitution empowers us to do, all of us must account for each of our actions oneday infront of our creator”, he further stated.
The state house of Assembly had earlier directed Governor Muhammed Badaru Abubakar to explain the rational behind procurement of school furniture that is being carried out in all the 27 local government areas which they argued was against the 2017 fiscal budget.
The assembly members had extensively argued on the floor that the present expenditure being carried out by the council chairmen under the directive of the governor ought to have been done either by the SUBEB or UBEC.
They said the expenditure was not captured in the 2017 budget therefore wonders were the state draws the fund for the projects while a motion seeking that the house should institute an investigative panel that will probe the matter.
A source at the government house revealed that there are indications that the governor may hold a vital meeting today (sunday) with the aggrieved members so that they could shift their ground.