BEVERLY HILLS, March 07, (THEWILL) – The Senate has criticised the conduct of Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State describing it as a threat to democracy in Nigeria following the attack on a Senator in the state.
This was following a motion by Senator Ahmad Ogembe (PDP, Kogi) on the disruption of his empowerment programme on Saturday in Okene, Kogi State where he alleged that political thugs disrupted his empowerment programme and that he could no longer go to his constituency freely without being harassed and intimidated.
He stated that if the situation was left unchecked; it might lead to complete breakdown of law and order in the state.
On his part, the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, condemned the act as he his experience between 2011 and 2015 when he had a running battle with the then Enugu State Governor.
“People are holding meetings every day on how to deal with every one of us here (in the senate). No matter the intimidation, we will continue to do our job,” he said.
“If he (Bello) doesn’t stop, there is no how he will come back in 2019, never, no he will not. God will show him that he is a God of justice and this is a message to all those people who have caused all kinds of problem in Nigeria at different level. The problem in Nigeria is that our democracy is receding. Who says army cannot take over? Let us not joke with our democracy that is the issue.”
In his remarks, Senate President, Bukola Saraki, said, “It is important that we take this discussion on the unfortunate incident that happened to Sen. Ogembe today because it is not really just about Kogi State.
“It is clear from what we are seeing that Kogi State is coming to the point where it is a threat to our democracy and it cannot be seen to define our democracy because this is not what our democracy is about. We must be seen to be making example to other parts of the world.
“Distinguished colleagues, I want you all to contribute and see that we must get to the bottom of this. We must take actions that will prevent this kind of incidents from happening and we must look at what our prayers will be that will have that effect and condemn this in the strongest terms because this kind of action is totally unacceptable and it cannot be allowed to continue.
“We are almost 20 years into democracy and this cannot be the democracy that we should be talking about after 20 years. This is totally unacceptable.
“We saw the case in Kaduna State. How can a governor proudly say he is going to bulldoze a house in Nigeria at this time and we are all keeping quiet? These are things that we must condemn totally,” he said
At the end, the Senate resolved to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the circumstances that led to the disruption of the empowerment programme and the level of involvement of the police and gave a two-week timeframe to members of the panel to submit their report.
