‘Don’t induce senators to remove Saraki’

THE leadership of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the Presidency and the All Progressives Congress (APC) of inducing senators to remove Senate President Bukola Saraki.

The opposition party also alleged that the government was in the process of forcing the reopening of the Senate, contrary to Section 12 of the Senate Standing Rules.

But the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Caucus and the South East Caucus in the House of Representatives have again warned their colleagues in the Senate to shelve any plot to remove Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu.

In a statement yesterday issued by the House Deputy Minority Leader, Chukwuka Onyema, the lawmakers said some senators are planning an invasion of the Senate chamber in conjunction with security agencies.

The Senate is presently on annual recess and is expected to resume session on September 25.

The Presidency, however, said its call for the National Assembly to resume duties was to enable the federal legislature process the 2019 election budget for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

President Muhammadu Buhari had, a week before the National Assembly proceeded on its annual vacation, submitted a budget of N242 billion for the INEC for the consideration of the lawmakers.

At a media briefing at its Abuja secretariat yesterday, the PDP queried the timing of the submission of the INEC budget seven months to the general elections.

Besides, the party, through its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said the Presidency did not have the powers to order or call for the reopening of the National Assembly, as suggested by the presidential liaison officer for the Senate, Ita Enang.

Ologbondiyan said: “What Enang had done is just a mere wish. He does not have the power to order or call for the reopening of the Senate.  He is just expressing his personal wishes.

“As a matter of fact, Senator Ita Enang had been the chairman of the Senate Rules and Business Committee both in the House and in and the Senate. Would he have listened to anybody from outside the chamber to come and dictate to the presiding officers?

“It is unfortunate that people who have experience in legislative practices and procedures, when they get to the executive arm, instead of telling the executive the limit of their powers, they pretend to know it all,  and by so doing, they mislead the executives. That is exactly what Enang is doing.

Also, the PDP caucus in the House of Representatives, in statement, said: “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 Senate leadership and effect a change of the Senate President and the Deputy Senate President.”

The lawmakers said the trend of events “must be strenuously resisted by all true democrats and well-meaning Nigerians”.

The South East Caucus in the House warned that it would hold Senator Ali Ndume and his group in the Senate responsible if Ekweremadu should meet with any harm.

The caucus, in a statement yesterday by its leader, Onyema, accused Ndume of interfering in the statutory and professional job of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).