THERE was a mild drama on the floor of the Senate on
Wednesday when a lawmaker representing Rivers East
Senatorial District, George Sekibo, rose to present a petition
against the nomination of former governor, Mr. Rotimi
Amaechi, as a minister.
No sooner than Sekibo, who is a member of the Peoples
Democratic Party, 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.
