Following President Muhammadu Buhari’s deployment of Nigerian troops, warships to crisis ridden Gambia, the Senate has condemned the president’s decision to go ahead with the deployment without seeking the approval of the senate.
Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari was appointed as the ECOWAS mediator in the Gambia’s electoral crisis. However, despite the peace talks, Jammeh has refused to step down thus forcing the coalition of African forces to the troubled nation.
The Nigerian Air Force had on Wednesday sent a contingent of 200 men and air assets, led by Air Commodore Tajudeen Yusuf, to Dakar, Senegal, with the aim of ousting the embattled President from office.
Reacting to the military action, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, during today’s plenary at the red chambers of the National Assembly, raised a point of order.
Citing Section 5(4) of the Constitution, he said what the Buhari-led government did was against the law.
Utazi said, “I am saying this because of the happenings in our friendly country in Gambia. The ECOWAS countries have been discussing on this issue; on how to ensure that democratic crisis of the people of Gambia are protected. But to add that this country will go on a warfare in another country without a recourse to this constitutional provisions is an affront of the 1999 Constitution and it is a breach of the Constitution, and we have failed even when the Senate has been cooperating with the executive.
“Let it be on record that if anything of this nature happens, that this national assembly have to be informed properly in writing.”
Section 5(4) states, “(a) the President shall not declare a state of war between the federation and another country except with the sanction of a resolution of both houses of the National Assembly sitting in a joint session; and (b) except with the prior approval of the senate, no member of the armed forces of the federation shall be deployed on combat duty outside Nigeria.”
