The Vice President, Senator Ibrahim Shettima has made a desperate effort to clarify his speech at a recent book launch which was understood to mean that the president had no constitutional powers to remove any elected office holder, even a local government chairman from office, saying the media misrepresented him.
In a statement issued from his office by Stanley Nkwocha, the Vice President’s Media Adviser pointed to the semantics of the words used saying that the sense and reference of “removal’ from office is different to ‘suspension’ from office.
The statement blamed some Some news outlets for ‘irresponsibly’ twisting the “Vice President’s account of how the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan floated the idea of removing him from office then as governor of Borno State” adding it was a “gross misrepresentation” to equate same to mean that the suspension of Fubara was unconstitutional.
Explaining the difference in the two scenarios, the statement read: ” Section 305(1)(c) explicitly authorises measures to be taken when there is “a breakdown of public order and public safety in the federation or any part thereof to such extent as to require extraordinary measures to restore peace and security.
He, the Vice President, then justified the president’s action of suspending Fubara by saying:
“The steep descent into chaos in Rivers State had reached precisely this constitutional threshold, with daily incidents of politically motivated violence, systematic attacks on federal institutions, and complete paralysis of governance, creating conditions that no democratic society could reasonably tolerate.
“Worse still, it degenerated into attacks on national assets, according to credible security.”
“This cannot be compared with the situation in the North East region under the Jonathan administration, where violent non-state actors were challenging the sovereignty of the Nigerian state and required collective action from the central government and subnationals to eliminate the terrorists.”
Therefore, he posited “President Tinubu’s actions were taken within the constitutional framework and in consultation with relevant stakeholders to preserve democratic institutions and maintain peace in Rivers State.
The statement further explains, “We wish to state categorically that Vice President Shettima’s comments were made within the specific context of acknowledging the author’s past professional conduct during his tenure as Attorney General of the Federation. His remarks were historical references to events that occurred during the Jonathan administration and constituted nothing more than an intellectual discourse on Nigeria’s constitutional evolution.
“This rare moment of retrospection was purely illustrative, intended to demonstrate how our constitutional democracy has matured within the capacity to resolve complex federal-state tensions through established legal mechanisms.
In all, the vice president affirms that President Tinubu followed the constitutional process with honest precision. The President’s proclamation properly invoked Section 305(2), which was subsequently ratified by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the National Assembly as mandated by Section 305(3).
He added, “This broad cross-party consensus demonstrates the universal recognition among our elected representatives that Rivers State had reached a point of constitutional necessity that demanded immediate federal intervention.
Therefore, to interpret Senator Shettima’s observations as commentary on current affairs represents either willful misinterpretation or ignorance of constitutional discourse. The vice president’s speech was focused on the importance of public officials documenting their stewardship and the eternal nature of accountability in public service. His historical references were made to illustrate the principled positions taken by public servants in the past, not a criticism of government policies.
