ABUJA- AS the Senate resumes today for legislative business
after a forced one-month recess aimed at settling its leadership crisis, many
senators yesterday, defended amendment of the Standing Rule used in the
election of Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President on June 9.
Reacting to the alleged amendment,in separate interviews,
the senators insisted that there was nothing wrong with the alteration.
Responding particularly to the forgery case leveled against
the Senate leadership by the senators belonging to Senate Unity Forum,SUF, a
group of senators of the All Progressives Congress, APC, backing Senator Ahmad
Lawan,APC,Yobe North, as Senate President,the lawmakers said there was no
forgery in the 2015 Senate Standing Rule.
Senator Abiodun Olujimi,PDP,Ekiti South, said the amendments
made in the 2015 senate standing orders being referred to as forgeries by the
Ahmad Lawan group in the senate, was carried out by the management of the
National Assembly for the inauguration of the 8th Senate.
She said the senators alleging forgeries as a result of
slight amendments effected on the 2011Senate Standing Order used by the 7th
Senate as reflected in the 2015 standing order , were just playing politics
with a strictly internal matter of the legislature.
She frowned at the petition written to the police on the
alleged alteration,saying legislative immunity on such matter, prevents both
the police and the court of law to handle it.
She said: “As far as majority of the senators are concerned,
the alleged forgeries being bandied about by Ahmad Lawan and his group, is a
ruse, because for every new senate, a new standing order must be provided which
was what was given to senators at the inauguration of the 8th Senate on the 9th
of last month.
‘ Lawan and the other senators crying wolf where there is
none, were not the only senators who were in the 7th senate and besides, the
7th senate ended with its standing order of 2011 on the 4th of June 2015. The
2015 senate standing order is a fresh document meant for the 8th senate and not
7th senate, so where lies the forgery they are talking about?”
She added that appropriate sanction may later be meted out
to those dragging the institution of the senate in the mud on matters that are
strictly internal.
“I think there are reprimands for those who go outside the
line abs I am sure that the senate will apply appropriate sanction at the
appropriate when to those that may be found culpable on this matter at the end
of the day”, she stressed.
Also speaking, senators Hope Uzodinma, PDP, Imo West, Shehu
Sani,APC,Kaduna Central and George Sekibo,PDP Rivers East, in their separate
reactions,said what reflected on the 2015 Senate standing rules in comparison
to similar provisions in the 2011 document used by the 7th Senate , were amendments
and not forgery as alleged by some of their colleagues.
They said what the aggrieved senators should have done, was
to have initiated the process of amending the provisions they found offensive
and not shouting forgery and even taken the matter to the police,
The forgery scandal rocking the 8th senate as alleged by the
pro – Lawan senators has to do with amendments made to the 2015 Senate Standing
Rule, by yet to be identified individuals, upon which a petition was written by
Suleiman Hunkunyi, APC Kaduna North, to the police for necessary action last
month.
The petition reads in part, “We write to bring to your
attention, the existence of the fraudulent introduction of a 2015 Senate
Standing Rules as amended.
“We wish to attach the original and authentic Standing Order
for 2011 that was used by the 7th Senate, Annexure A.
“We again attached the annex Herero, a purported amended
Standing Orders 2015, which was used by the Clerk to the National Assembly
(along with the Clerk of the Senate) in inaugurating the 8th Senate on June 9,
2015.
“The so called new Standing Orders purports to allow for
secret instead of the open ballot system that has been prevalent in all Senate
elections as permitted by the extant rules.
“This infraction, among others, arise from the fraudulent
production of the Rules without an approved consideration by the 7th Senate.
“At no time was the Standing Orders of the Senate amended
during the entire life of the 7th Senate neither has the 8th Senate sat for
long enough to produce the rules now being circulated and in use”.
The police, on the strengh of the petition, subsequently
quizzed the leadership of the 7th Senate, including Senators David Mark; his
deputy, Ike Ekweremadu; Former Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba; and the Former
Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Ita
Credit: Vanguard
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