By ISMAILA CHAFE

The Presidency has condemned The Guardian Newspaper’s editorial calling for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Malam Garba Shehu, the President’s media aide made the condemnation in a statement on Tuesday in Abuja.

The presidential aide frowned at the way and manner the newspaper had taken up the role of regular antagonist and political opponent of the president and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The statement read in part: “The Guardian newspaper, which has taken up the role of regular antagonist and political opponent of the President and his party, APC for a long time now, has surpassed itself with its latest call for the impeachment of the President.

“The newspaper editors clearly do not like the way the president is running the country and therefore they believe he should be impeached.

“They debase both the political discourse of our nation and public understanding of the law and constitution by doing so.

“Impeachment is a process undertaken after high crimes and misdemeanors have been proven.

“It’s a not a process undertaken against a leader whose politics you do not agree with, or who you personally dislike.

“It appears, impeachment has become a newly added partisan weapon in their arsenal – wielded by those who have established a track record of hatred towards the President and an attempt to remove from office one who was democratically elected by the people.”

Shehu said that the newspaper had never hidden its dislike and hatred against the Buhari administration since its inception in 2015.

“The fact is, it should be for presidents to govern and for opposition politicians and the media to hold them to account.

“So, from day one, they set about attacking this president more than any other in Nigeria’s history.

“The fact they could not defeat him at the ballot box when he was re-elected in 2019 – and now with his APC party very likely to retain the presidency in spite of all their best efforts.

“They now turn to all and any means, no matter the political, legal, or constitutional consequences to bring him down.

“For the benefit of the ones who have forgotten, the Guardian newspaper had in the past, been worshipped as the flagship of the nation’s press; the one that had won every “Newspaper of the Year” awards.

“Now, they have sadly fallen from the height it once occupied as a medium that sparked intellectual thought and discourse for a fiddler of poorly scripted invective and ad hominem.

“The Guardian newspaper may never be friend or ally of President Buhari, but they should know better than to support this “headline-grabbing stunt,” Shehu said. (NAN)

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