Former Chief of Army Staff, Lt General Salihu Ibrahim has cautioned that removing the immunity clause from the constitution would breed chaos and make the country ungovernable.
He advocated for the retention of the clause, saying it was necessary for stability and progress of the nation.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja at the weekend, against the backdrop of the recent controversy surrounding section 308 of the constitution, which fortify certain elected public office holders from civil and criminal proceedings, Ibrahim said there were episodes in the past to indicate that the clause needed to be retained.
“I think it will be a great error for our country to tamper with the immunity clause as contained in the federal constitution, should any attempt be made to change that, then we would be creating chaos, we probably won’t be able to have a steady government in this country,” he said.
Citing example with the General Murtala Mohammed regime, which allowed for taking the head of state to court, Ibrahim said the gen-eral was sued, leading to the introduction of the immunity clause.
Arguing that it was a global convention for certain elected officials to enjoy immunity, the former army chief said “almost every country has this clause, because it’s the only way of assuring the steady and effective governance of a government of a country.”
Apparently referring to Governor Joshua Dariye of Plateau State, who is curr-ently facing criminal charges by a Kaduna High Court, Ibrahim said “I have not seen how that government would function effectively with the litany of accusations and counter-accusations and thr-eats to his person being taken to court.”
He contended that the immunity clause must remain, warning that its removal from the constitution would be a “disaster” to Nigeria.
Ibrahim further said that there were some vindictive forces against Dariye.
“For all indications and all we have been reading in the papers these days, it seems that it is true that an attempt by some interested parties to make life difficult for the governor of Plateau State, an attempt to reduce that governor to nothing else, in which case, I do subscribe to the feeling by the affected party of playing vendetta of some sort on him for whatever reasons I cannot say for now,” he said.
The former general, who spoke on the restiveness in some parts of the north, traced the problem to the multiplicity of states in the area, which he said had broken the unity hitherto enjoyed.
He said also that some influential personalities had not helped matters by making provocative utterances.
Ibrahim suggested that the way out was to economically empower the citizenry and for the people to understand and respect the differences among them.
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