Nigeria: Church Gift – ACN Wants Jonathan Impeached

By Abbas Jimoh

The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has asked the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against President Goodluck Jonathan for openly admitting that he solicited for a church built in his home town, Otuoke, from Gitto Construzioni Generali Nigeria Ltd (GCG).

National publicity secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said in a statement yesterday in Abuja that commencing the impeachment proceedings will enable the National Assembly investigate the matter and also reach the appropriate conclusions, since the president, by his own admission and without any prompting, has thumbed his nose at the constitution.

“To know the gravity of the president’s self-admission of soliciting the church ‘gift’ from the managing director of GCG, one needs to understand Section 6 of the Code of Conduct for Public officers embodied in the First Schedule of the 1999 Constitution and the Code of Conduct and Tribunal Act (CAP C15) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

“The Act states: ‘A public officer shall not ask for or accept any property or benefits of any kind for himself or any other person on account of anything done or omitted to be done by him in the discharge of his duties.

“For the purposes of subsection (1) of this subsection, the receipt by a public officer of any gifts or benefits from commercial firms, business enterprises or persons who have contracts with the government shall be presumed to have been received in contravention…unless the contrary is proved,” the statement said.

He also said that by openly and gleefully saying at the inauguration of the church that “the managing director of Gitto made him a promise to build and donate the church to Otuoke community after he (the president) had complained of the aging structure of his church,” the president has demonstrated that he is either not conversant with the constitution he swore to uphold or thinks very little of the laws of the land.

He added that “Gitto has obtained billions of contracts from the Nigerian government, amid reported allegations in the media that it has not executed such contracts well. How can the federal government hold the company to account, when it (firm) has obtained an “insurance cover” by bribing the president? Is this not why the country’s anti-corruption efforts have not achieved anything? Can the EFCC and the ICPC honestly and boldly fight corruption when the president is knee-deep in the mud of corruption?”

Posted by admin on May 19 2012. Filed under African News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry