Abuja — The impeachment penultimate week, of the Bauchi State Deputy Governor, Alhaji Garba Mohammed Gadi and the subsequent appointment of the state assembly's speaker, Alhaji Babayo Gamawa, has been described as a rape of democracy.

Chief Edwin Clark who gave this description in a press conference conducted in his Asokoro residence, said it was a slap on the country's fledgling democracy for a governor who ordinarily should be impeached by the state house of assembly for cross-carpeting to another party, to instigate the state legislators to impeach his deputy for not toeing his footsteps.

"Injustice done to one is injustice done to all. It is on this basis that I decided to call this press conference to condemn the action. I thought that was the end of the matter, but later I heard that the governor has sworn in the speaker who presided over the impeachment as deputy.

"The 17 legislators who impeached the deputy governor were seen 24 hours later, driving to the state House to swear in the speaker. It was on this basis that I addressed a personal letter to Governor Isa Yuguda, to tell him that he is a disgrace to this country", he said.

Clark, who lamented that the main reason for the impeachment of the deputy was because he refused to play a stooge to the governor by joining him in his infamous decampment to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said that it was a dent on the country's democracy and called on Nigerians to unequivocally, condemn the governor's autocratic stance.

The elder statesman who also slammed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for her inability to correct the ills in our body polity which he said was the greatest threat to democracy, also flayed President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua for giving subtle approval to what he called the illegalities perpetrated by the Bauchi State governor.

He said the refusal to follow the constitutional provisions is the greatest assault on the president's claims to adherence to rule of law.