Senate Become A Market Place Because Of Ameachi

A
drama was played in the Senate on
Wednesday when George Sekibo, a
lawmaker representing
Rivers East Senatorial
District,
Stand to present a petition against the nomination of former
governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, as a minister.
Sekibo, who is a member of the Peoples
Democratic Party(PDP), raised a point of order to submit the
petition than the All Progressives Congress senators kicked
against the submission, and raised their voice, shouting No!!
No!!!
Notwithstanding the reaction of the APC senators, Sekibo
went ahead with his point of order and got the permission of
the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to submit the document
on behalf of his other colleagues from Rivers State.
Saraki, who ignored the protests of his party members,
referred the petition to the Senate Committee on Ethics,
Privileges and Public Petitions to investigate the allegations
against Amaechi and report back to the Senate.
Speaking with journalists in his office shortly after the
plenary, Sekibo said the petition was based on an
investigation carried out by a Port Harcourt-based group,
called the Integrity Group.
Sekibo said the same petition had earlier been forwarded to
President Muhammadu Buhari and the various anti-graft
agencies in the country about two months ago when the
group concluded its investigation.
He said, “The Integrity Group, based in Port Harcourt,
believes in transparency, fighting against corruption. They
(Integrity Group) believe in good governance and effective
utilisation of every fund that is allocated to any state
government.
“They went into a research and discovered that over N70bn
were transferred from hard currency account to places
outside the country. A petition on this note was written to
Mr. President. I believe the President has not read it.
“If he has read it, he may not have hurriedly nominated
Rotimi Amaechi to be a minister. Amaechi is qualified to be
a minister, but when issues of corruption and fraud are
openly X-rayed by people, it is necessary for Mr. President
to take a critical look and examine the allegations whether
they are true or not.”
Sekibo said senators from Rivers State were not kicking
against the appointment of a Rivers man to be a minister,
but that Buhari should pick another member of the APC
from the state with cleaner records.
Reacting to the action of the APC senators, a Peoples
Democratic Party member representing Delta Central
Senatorial District, Senator Ighoyota Amori, lamented the
development, stressing that such behaviour would send
negative signals to Nigerians.
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Media
and Publicity, Senator Dino Melaye, on Wednesday
explained why the APC members in the upper chamber
protested the submission of petition against the nomination
of Amaechi, as a minister.
Melaye told one of our correspondents in an interview that
his colleagues in the APC protested against the submission
of the petition because it was submitted by senators.
He said, “Our responsibility as senators is to screen the
ministerial nominees based on petitions received from
outsiders like civil society organisations, and communities
and not from senators.
“We specifically objected to Senator George Sekibo
presenting the petition not because we are against the
investigation of allegation against Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, but
because the petition was brought by senators.
“Petitions should come from outside. They should not be
sponsored by members within the chamber. We should not
be the judge in our own case.”
Meanwhile, the Rivers State chapter of the APC has flayed
Sekibo for his attempt to submit a petition against Amaechi’s
nomination as a minister.
The State Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mr. Chris Finebone,
said Sekibo lacked the basic knowledge of how Amaechi
administration worked.
Finebone recalled in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on
Wednesday that Amaechi had supported Sekibo’s second
term bid for the Senate against the wish of the current
governor of the state, describing the lawmaker as a man that
bit the finger that fed him.