Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party
members of the House of Representatives again on Monday raised the alarm
of a plot to invade the Senate and reconvene it by force.....
The PDP caucus warned that the plot,
allegedly to be executed by “a small group of senators” aided by
security agencies, could lead to a total breakdown of law and order at
the National Assembly if the planners did not abandon the idea.
The caucus gave the warning after the members’ emergency meeting at the National Assembly.
It stated that the plotters would
pretend that they wanted the Senate to discuss urgent national issues;
the real intention was to remove the Senate President, Bukola Saraki,
and the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu.
Recall that last week, the caucus raised
a similar alarm and went a step further to name senators Ali Ndume,
Abdullahi Adamu and Ovie Omo-Agege, as the brains behind the plot.
But, on Monday, it did not mention names, preferring to call the alleged plotters “a small group of senators.”
The Deputy Minority Leader of the House,
Mr Chukwuka Onyema, who signed a statement on the position of the
caucus, said any illegal reconvening of the Senate would not stand.
The lawmakers advised the All
Progressives Congress Federal Government to uphold the rule of law in
all its actions if the country must not lose its democracy.
The caucus stated, “It has come to our
attention that there is an impending plot by a small group of senators
aided by security agencies to again invade the Senate chamber with a
view to illegally reconvening the Senate plenary.
“Ostensibly, their purpose is to address
what they term as urgent national issues. However, it is clear that
their real purpose is an attempt to unlawfully oust the leadership of
the Senate and effect a change of the Senate President and the Deputy
Senate President.
“This trend of events must be
strenuously resisted by all true democrats and well-meaning Nigerians.
We have, over time, witnessed a descent of our country’s once stable
democracy, into an abyss of dictatorship.”
On the reconvening of the National
Assembly, the PDP caucus said, “The procedure for reconvening the
National Assembly is unambiguously stated in the rules of both Houses of
the National Assembly. These rules draw their constitutionality from
Section 60 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“When the National Assembly stands
adjourned to a fixed date, it may only be reconvened at an earlier or
later date when the leaders of the political parties in the National
Assembly make a written representation to the presiding officers,
stating that there is a need to convene plenary to attend to matters of
urgent national importance.
“In such an event, the presiding officer
may give notice to members of a date that the National Assembly is to
reconvene. In the present instance, there has been no such notification
to either the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of
Representatives.”
But when contacted for his reaction to
the allegations, Omo-Agege dismissed the claims by the PDP members in
the House of Representatives.
He said, “The allegation is totally
unfounded, it is a figment of their imagination and I don’t know where
this is coming from. They had better focus on protecting Saraki if they
must.
“However, they must understand one
thing: nobody elected Saraki a monarch. He was put there (as Senate
President) by senators and the senators can remove him when they believe
it is time. My position on this is very clear and I have never hidden
it, the moment he stopped being a member of the APC, he had lost not
just the moral right but also the legal right to remain as Senate
President. I expect him to do the right thing, to step down from that
office and allow the majority party to appoint or elect a replacement.”
The Nigeria Police Force in its reaction to the allegations denied backing any faction of the National Assembly.
The Force Public Relations Officer,
Jimoh Moshood, said, “It is not true that the police are supporting any
group of senators. The police are not involved in politics. We are not
partisan.
“The police are not concerned with the
leadership of the Senate or the House of Representatives. The general
public should disregard those allegations. The police are not involved
in party affairs.”
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