The confusion erupted after the
President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, refused to allow former minority
leader, Godswill Akpabio, contribute to a point of order earlier raised by
Bassey Akpan.
Mr Saraki said he would not
recognise Mr Akpabio’s contribution because he was not sitting in the
appropriate seat.
“Senator… eh… former Minority
Leader, you know you can’t speak from there. You can’t. Go to your seat, when
you get to your seat, I’ll recognise you,” he said.
He, thereafter, asked the leader
of the Senate to proceed with other items on the Order Paper.
But the senate leader, Ahmed
Lawan, stood up to defend Mr Akpabio.
“If he decides to sit there, let
him. There is no microphone there. Let us not take the panadol for his
headache. Let me advise, that even though we have only six, seven months to go,
let’s do what is right,” he said.
Thereafter, lawmakers began to
shout at one another, with each person trying to defend his or her party.
Efforts by the senate president to
call senators to order were unsuccessful as some of them were seen rising from
their seats to confront colleagues from the opposition parties.
Mr. Akpabio, a former governor of
Akwa Ibom State, is a first-time senator. He was elected to the upper chamber
on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
But he
defected to the governing All Progressives Congress weeks ago. He also resigned
his position as minority leader of the chamber.
In contrast, Mr. Saraki was
elected to the Senate on the platform of the APC but he soon fell out with the
party after he emerged senate president against the wishes of the party and its
leadership.
That left him in constant
confrontation with the party and President Muhammadu Buhari, culminating in his
return to the PDP from which he joined the APC in 2013.
Source: Premium Times
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