Hon Faults Buhari’s Refusal To Sack Service Chiefs

Chief Sebastine Hon, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s response to the Senate’s call for the sacking of service chiefs.

While reacting to the President’s unwillingness to sack the service chiefs, Hon described Buhari’s response to the Senate’s call as insensitive.

In a statement issued today, he said recent events in the body polity had shown that the executive arm of government was showing scant respect to the National Assembly.

He said:  “I must say that the reaction of the Presidency to the resolution by the Senate for the Service Chiefs to vacate office is most unfortunate and insensitive.

Hon, who has written several books on the Nigerian constitution,  stated that  even though the practice of some Nigerian Presidents, not just  Buhari, was to extend the retirement of certain public officers, including military and police chiefs, this practice, he argued was, unconstitutional, null and void.

According to him,  sections 215 and 218 of the 1999 Constitution as amended  permitted the President or the Police Council (in respect of the Inspector-General of Police) to appoint service and police chiefs to head security departments ‘from among serving members of the security body’ concerned, not those whom the law has deemed to have retired or who are statutorily due for retirement.

He said: “In respect of the police, section 215(1)(a) of the Constitution is very clear on this. In respect of the military service chiefs, section 218(2) of the Constitution has empowered the President to appoint them from among the branches of ‘the armed forces of the Federation as may be established by an Act of the National Assembly.’

“Now, this ‘Act’ mentioned in the Constitution is the Armed Forces Act, 2004. Section 18(1) of this Act stipulates that the President can only appoint the Chiefs  of Army, Air and Navy Staff: (a) after consultation with  the Chief of Defence Staff; and (b) subject to confirmation by the National Assembly. The subsection also requires such appointees to be ‘officers’ of the Army, the Airforce or the Navy, as the case may be.

“Again, there is no room for appointment of officers who, statutorily, are supposed to have left office on retirement.”

He also argued that public officers appointed to such highly sensitive offices were supposed to produce desired results, without which they should not stay any minute further on their seats, even when they have not reached retirement ages.

The statement read: ‘In this particular case, countless numbers of soldiers are being killed by insurgents and bandits; hundreds are deserting their formations; hundreds are voluntarily retiring;  thousands are reportedly suffering from low morale, etc, with the attendant civilian losses of unimaginable scales.

“The National Assembly qua the Senate, as the custodian of Nigerian Constitution – as per the Supreme Court in Inakoju vs. Adeleke (2007) All FWLR (Pt. 354) 3 at 123 – therefore, stood in ferma terra (on firm ground) when it unanimously passed a resolution that Nigeria’s service chiefs should vacate office.

“No responsible legislature will sit and watch with nonchalant aloofness how Nigeria is cascading down the cliff, into an avoidable abyss.

“The spokesman of Mr. President, Mr. Femi Adesina, did not therefore act in the interest of Nigerians, and was particularly insensitive, when, instead of advising the President to do the needful, raged about the appointing powers of Mr. President.

“Is Mr. President no more answerable to Nigerians in general, and particularly the National Assembly, which has powers of impeachment? Or is he suggesting that Mr. President is so obsessed with his appointing powers that he has scant care about the sufferings of Nigerians?

“I wish to remind Mr. Presidential Spokesman that the National Assembly is made up majorly of members of Mr. President’s political party, the APC, and that from inception, they have pledged, to the chagrin and shock of Nigerians, ‘loyalty’ to the President. For them to summon courage to voice out this resolution should send some message that not only are things no more flowing in the same direction, but that they are being realistic and honest, given the scary happenings in their fatherland.”

He conceded that, even though in constitutional jurisprudence, parliamentary or congressional resolutions are not binding on the executive arm of government, they serve at least four fundamental purposes: (a) they pour out the ‘mind’ of  the Legislature; (b) they tell the whole world the Legislature is not part of the ‘mess’ – for posterity sake; (c) they galvanise public support for the subject matter; and (d) they send a strong signal to the watching and ever watchful international community about snowballing events in the body polity.
He therefore called on the Presidency to be well advise.

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