Report on Ekweremadu out next week –Police

The police said on Wednesday that they had concluded their investigations into the alleged forgery of Senate rules by the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, and some principal officers and management of the National Assembly.

The police said they had interrogated all the persons involved and that the findings would be made public next week.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Emmanuel Ojukwu, told one of our correspondents on the telephone on Wednesday that “the police had done the needful.”

When asked if investigators had quizzed all the suspects in the forgery case, he said, “We have talked to all the people involved in the case and by next week, the findings would be made public.

“The outcome of investigation and legal advice will determine who to be prosecuted.”

Ojukwu spoke shortly after the Senate Unity Forum, a group made up of anti-Senate President Bukola Saraki senators, expressed concern over the slow pace of police investigation into the forgery allegations.

The SUF called on well-meaning Nigerians to, as a matter of urgency, prevail on authorities concerned to commence necessary investigation that would unravel the alleged forgery scandal.

The group’s secretary, Senator Suleiman Hunkunyi, had petitioned the police, alleging that the 2015 Senate Standing Rules was forged.

Hunkunyi’s petition read 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, arises 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 strength of the petition, subsequently quizzed the leadership of the 7th Senate, including Senator David Mark; his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu; former Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba; and the former Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Ita Enang.

But the SUF, in a statement by its spokesperson, Senator Kabir Marafa, in Abuja on Wednesday, lamented that the police action on the issue was becoming too slow.

Marafa said, “The problem is that the Senate was inaugurated using a forged document. Who forged that document? We can’t gloss over or sweep that criminality under the carpet, Nigeria is not a Banana republic.

“The standing order is an upshot of the constitution, it spelt out clearly in order 110 (1-5) how it can be amended just like the constitution spelt out how it can be amended in section 9 (1-4).

“The insertion of order 3 (2 IV) & 3 (3e i-iiii) in the 2015 edition is a deliberate act perpetrated by 5th columnist operating within the National Assembly to sabotage the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“It was done to cause friction, disaffection and generate bad blood among senators from different zones and provoke confusion in the senate with the sole aim of stagnating government business to give them time to perfect their agenda.”

He lamented, for instance, that the insertion of order 3 (2 iv), was done to favour the Peoples Democratic Party caucus in the Senate who supported Senator Bukola Saraki, to become the Senate President.

He said, “For 16 years of the PDP leadership, the presiding officers and committee headship were skewed in favour of the zones that produced more PDP senators but suddenly they introduced equality of zones in the distribution of these offices because they lost out, this is unacceptable by APC senators.

“Let me use this medium to call on all well-meaning Nigerians to as a matter of urgency call on all the authorities concerned to commence investigation into this illegality before it overwhelms us as a nation.”

Marafa added that there was no law that set time frame within which to clear the service chiefs, adding that President Muhammadu Buhari had the powers to appoint the service chiefs on acting capacity.

The President had on Monday appointed new service chiefs and a National Security Adviser after sacking those he inherited from his predecessor, ex-President Goodluck Jonathan.

Buhari had said the service chiefs would function in acting capacity pending their approval by the National Assembly as required by the Constitution.

Copyright PUNCH.