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The ultimatum given to the President to resign or be impeached expired Tuesday. What is the situation on the ground at the House of Representatives, is the impeachment motion still on?

Yes, the ultimatum expired Tuesday and the contents of the motion were quite explicit. He was given two weeks to resign or be impeached, now that he has not resigned, the course of the motion stands. Furthermore, Impeachment of a President is not something you start and finish in one day, it is a gradual process. The constitutional violations have been listed and it is the serving of these violations to the President that actually starts the impeachment. On our side, we are working day and night to make sure that we put every thing in place.

By law, the House cannot impeach the President without the co-operation of the Senate. We are aware that about 75 per cent of the senators were in support of the motion and the Senate passed a resolution backing the House while the Senate ad-committee was mandated to look into the alleged constitutional violations. What do you think will be the scenario in the event that the Senate suddenly decides to soft-pedal?

From what happened Tuesday, you can see that the Senate is even more resolved to go ahead with this idea of impeaching the President. The Senate is not mincing words in the matter, they have bounced back into relevance as the true Senate of the country, a responsive and responsible legislature. I think they are determined to get the lost glory that they used to have.

The National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Audu Ogbeh has been having discussions with its members, what happens in the event that the PDP members withdraw their support for the motion?

I want to say that the PDP members in the House appreciate that this is not a party affair. This is a by-partisan matter which was approached in that manner. The PDP cannot stop the process and the PDP caucus in the House of Representatives cannot stop the process also. Even my party, as it were, would not have any influence in what is happening. It is normal that we owe loyalty to our parties but there is also the loyalty, the responsibility to uphold the constitution of our country. Which comes first?

Our responsibility or duty to the constitution prevails. Members of the PDP in the House are only telling the party to understand that they have a superior consideration which is upholding the provisions of the constitution and the rule of law.

About 35 members of the House visited the President last weekend pledging their loyalty to him and disassociating themselves from the impeachment motion. Is that an indication that there is a crack in the House?

That is not an indication that there is a crack in the House. These people have always been traditional opposers, interested in their pockets only. They enjoy going between the President and the National Assembly so that they can feed fat on the rumours they peddle. What we need in the National Assembly is a 2/3 majority to do anything. 2/3 majority if the House is 240, so we can dispense with 120 members. If 35 are for Mr. President, we still have a large number that we can always use. For the President to receive those 35 members, as if it is the support he has, he is telling the world that he has no support in the House. If 35 out of 360 are for him, the percentage left is still much. We are not threatened by "contractors" if I may use that word. They are opportunists and they have been doing that in the past.

But what is the essence of impeaching a President few months to the end of his tenure? Why did the House not talk about impeachment all this while?

The purpose of impeaching the President just few months to his tenure is for the survival of democracy and the need to preserve the country. Margaret Thatcher was forced to resign from office in the year of election. That was because they wanted to safe-guard their system. If we leave President Obasanjo to remain in office, just as he has emasculated every other thing and every institution that epitomises democracy, he will emasculate the electoral process. When he came into power, he started emasculating his own political party, he made sure the founders of the party were driven away. People like Chiefs Sunday Awoniyi, Don Etiebet and Alhaji Bamangar Tukur were frustrated and they left the party. He emasculated the party convention and imposed Chief Barnabas Gemade thereby having the party in his pocket. He worked against all the opposition because he is a man who wants to hear himself only. When Gemade was proving to be stubborn he brought in Chief Audu Ogbeh. He had a hand in the botched ANPP convention. INEC is not independent and does not have the capacity to conduct free and fair election in this country because he has sapped them of funds and also made sure that they are unable to confront him, look at him in the eye and talk to him. The judiciary has been crippled because he has refused consistently to release funds. The last salary that the members of the Judiciary got at the federal level was since April. If he could emasculate all these symbols of democracy, how do you want me to believe that he will allow a free and fair election to hold. By the time he rigs the election and comes back as President again, there will be chaos, revolution, anarchy and we may loose democracy. We don't want that to happen, that is why we want to remove him. Furthermore, we couldn't have taken this step in 1999, 2000 or even 2001 because at that time, it was believed democracy was just ushered in and we should allow ourselves to make mistakes and learn from our mistakes. But if mistakes continue to re-occur as it is the case now, then we don't have any option than to do what we are doing now.

There are allegations that the members of the House are taking this action in order to prevent the President from running for re-election and also to coax the executive into releasing more money for their welfare.

There is no doubt that we don't want President Obasanjo to come back for a second term. Indeed, we don't even want him to finish this tenure. Talking about money, this issue is beyond money because the House has been consistent on its position from the onset. We have always done things conscientiously. Even when a few among us were being bought with money, some of us stood our grounds and exposed their corruption, we exposed the fact that the executive was using money to get members of the House to do illegitimate things such as removing the leadership of the House unjustly. But we have always refused. If we wanted money, we would have gotten all the money we wanted but we believe that we have a future. We believe this country belongs to all of us, indeed we have more stake in this country than Obasanjo because Nigeria has made him everything he is today. We feel he is not doing what we want him to do and that is why we are saying he should leave office with immediate effect and if he refuses, we are going to remove him.

The Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar visited the National Assembly Wednesday and had a meeting with the Speaker, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na'abba. What do you think is the significance of his visit?

The Vice President is most welcome. If not for anything, the executive is for the first time showing that there is a serious issue of concern because all the while the president came out on television and said we are jokers and that we are taking the joke a bit far. If the Vee pee has come, it means we are not jokers. Secondly, the issue is beyond visitation. Even if Obasanjo visits the House, it is not about visit but about issues. Let them stay where they are, we stay where we are and we correspond and agree on issues. Nobody needs to see us for anything. We have said that you have done a, b and c, if you have answers to them, sit down and answer us and if you want an independent umpire to handle the issue, we will send the impeachable offences to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, so that he sets up a committee to investigate the offences. If the President is found not wanting in any respect, he will be discharged.

Could you give us an insight into what went on at the meeting since you were there?

The meeting was all about the need to sustain democracy, uphold the provisions of the constitution and the need to appreciate the independence of the three arms of government. Our discussion was broad -based but we agreed not to divulge the details of the meeting. In view of that understanding, I will not want to speak further.

One of the issues raised by the House is the sale of the Mint. However, the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai had last week boasted that the House cannot stop the sale of the mint. How would you react to that?

First and foremost, I will answer that question with great pain because at my level, I shouldn't be seen reacting to Mallam Nasir El-Rufai. I don't deal with bureaucrats or public servants, I deal with politicians and policy makers. If he does not know, let me tell him that as a technocrat, bureaucrat, public servant, he can only be seen and not heard. His attempt to join issues with the House in the first place is misplaced. The way he is carrying about his work smacks of complete lack of understanding of the work of his office. I will denigrade myself and the office I occupy to join issues with him.

There are assumptions that there are unforeseen hands in this political saga. Some justify this by asking how an ANPP member raised a monumental issue and all the presidents party men including the Speaker and his deputy gave their support.

If you have been following the trend of events, you do not need a soothsayer to tell you that this is not a spontaneous or abrupt event. The relationship has been sour because Mr. President has never realized that the National Assembly has a role to play in this democratic experiment. He does not even believe that we have powers. If it was an ideal situation, you would be surprised and would have the question, why are they going this way when all the while he has had regard for them (I mean the PDP members). They have no reason whatsoever to treat him like a President produced by the party.

Are you taken aback by most of the hostile reactions from sections of the populace against the House including the reaction from the South-west that the House wants to truncate our democracy?

We are not trying to truncate democracy, I believe we are strengthening democracy. We don't want to set a bad precedence for the future because if Obasanjo goes free, subsequent Presidents will use this as a reference saying that he was not cautioned even while it was evident that he was involved in flagrant abuse of the constitution. Most of the negative comments are coming from the South-west. If Governor Lam Adesina could sit down in the comfort of his sitting room three weeks ago and ask the President to resign without anybody saying he is right or wrong, and today he is saying we are wrong for calling on Obasanjo to resign, what it tells us is that because Adesina and Obasanjo are Yoruba men, Obasanjo is now Adesina's President and not our President. If not why does he think he has the right to tell him to resign and we do not have the right to do same, moreso when we are the ones empowered by the constitution to check his excesses. This has shown that the Yoruba have trivialised the Presidency because they more or less see it as a President for the Yoruba. There are other comments that came in support of our action. The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Ohaneze Forum and many responsible Nigerians supported us including the Forum of the South-south and South-east. We have the majority of Nigerians behind us, it is only one block of the nation kicking against it because they feel he is their kinsman and therefore untouchable. We lost two Senate Presidents who are Igbo and nobody said democracy was threatened, why is that it is only when we talk about Obasanjo that democracy is threatened? When did Obasanjo become the symbol of democracy? What we are saying is that nobody is above the law and Obasanjo must be put to the test of the law.

Another issue raised by the House is that of the revenue allocation formula which was unilaterally changed by the President. But we are aware that the President has met with the governors and they have agreed on a formula. Are you still saying that is a wrong procedure of getting a new formula?

If the President thinks the revenue allocation formula should be changed, the law that set it up should be amended. All what he has done is a charade, unconstitutional and to that extent null and void. The President has usurped the powers of the National Assembly by his action. Most importantly, the Supreme Court Judgment says the first line charges are wrong. If the federal government feels it needs more money to fulfill its obligations which were before deducted as first line charges, it should be brought to the National Assembly. It will not be difficult for us to appreciate the fact that the money that the federal government gives to the joint-venture as part of our contributions for the drilling of crude oil that they do is something that all of us benefit from. If all these things charged before are now squarely within the budget of the federal government, that means it needs more money. We appreciate all these things, and would easily approve an increment of the money that goes to the government. He should not unilaterally change the sharing formula.

How do you project the 2003 elections?

If Obasanjo remains in power, we better forget it because he will rig the primaries of his party to emerge the presidential candidate and then rig the election proper and emerge as President. I don't have hope in 2003, there is nothing like 2003 with Obasanjo in office. Unless we are ready to be emasculated by him so that we can support his re-election bid, he is not ready for us to have Nigeria. We want a democrat who is willing to win or loose gallantly.