Detectives are probing the “unilateral” alteration of the Senate rules on the election of the Senate President and his deputy.
Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu
has been invited for questioning - an action that has drawn the ire of
the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Inspector General of Police Solomon
Arase asked Ekweremadu to report at the Force Headquarters, Abuja, today
to answer questions on a petition said to have been filed against him
by a group of senators detailing how he unilaterally tinkered with
certain provisions of the Senate Standing Rules.
The petitioners were said to have
alleged that Ekweremadu had taken undue advantage of the rules to become
the Deputy Senate President in the June 9 election of principal
officers of the National Assembly.
The election was to have been by voice vote, The Nation learnt. But ballot was used —against the rules, which Ekweremadu said had been adjusted.
Opponents of his election claim that there was no sitting to ammend the rules throughout the four years of the last Senate.
In Abuja yesterday, PDP National
Publicity Secretary Olisa Metuh said the said amendment to the rule was
effected by the bureaucracy of the National Assembly headed by the
Clerk, Alhaji Salisu Maikasuwa.
Metuh said the invitation from the IGP
was a build-up to phantom charges with a view to arresting and
incarcerating Ekweremadu and pave the way for the imposition of a
preferred APC senator to take his position.
The party accused certain unnamed All
Progressives Congress (APC) leaders of instigating the police action
against Ekweremadu, adding that the party had uncovered threats to the
life of the Deputy Senate President and other key PDP leaders.
“Since President Muhammadu Buhari’s
statement that Senator Ekweremadu’s election was ‘unacceptable’ to his
party, the Deputy Senate President, who can only be removed by the
Senate, has come under threats and intense pressure from APC leaders to
resign and allow a senator from the ruling party to take his position.
“However, having failed to get him to
resign, the APC has now engaged in heinous plots to force him out of
office, a design which totally negates the independence of the
legislature and the spirit and letters of the constitution of Nigeria.
“Apparently to ensure that the agenda is
given an official stamp, the Inspector General of Police, acting on
instructions, has invited the Deputy Senate President with a view to
arresting him over phantom charges as a build-up to incarcerate him,
create a vacuum in the Senate and pave the way for the imposition of APC
preferred senator to take over his position.
“We are aware that some APC senators
opposed to the emergence of Senators Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu as
Senate President and Deputy Senate President, met last week and
concocted a petition accusing the Deputy Senate President of altering
the Senate Rules on the process of election of the Presiding Officers,
upon which the police, via a letter dated July 1, 2015 and signed by the
Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of criminal investigation
at the Force Headquarters has invited him to appear on Monday, July 6,
2015 where he will be detained and put under pressure.
“Apart from the fact that the Nigerian
Constitution clearly guarantees the two chambers of the National
Assembly the powers to regulate their proceedings without external
interferences, we note that the petition by this group of senators who
enjoy the sympathy of some APC leaders, lacks merit as Senator
Ekweremadu or any other senator-elect prior to the inauguration of the
Senate and the election of presiding officers, could not have been
involved in the process of producing the 2015 Standing Rules of the
Senate which was strictly done by the bureaucracy under the Clerk to the
National Assembly.
“Furthermore, Senator Ekweremadu was not
in any way involved in the process other than being nominated for the
position of the Deputy Senate President and could not have been privy to
the secret ballot procedure adopted by the National Assembly
bureaucracy, which has been widely adjudged as transparent and
credible”.
The PDP also alleged that besides using
security apparatus against the Deputy Senate President, the party had
information that there were instructions to certain officials at the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to alter some electoral
documents and records in order to create the impression that Ekweremadu
failed to file proper documents for the general elections to eventually
pave way for his removal.
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