- Vows to keep vigil
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Caucus in the House of Representatives Wednesday raised the alarm over an alleged secret plot by some “dissident senators” led by Senator Ali Ndume, Senator Adamu Abdullahi and Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to illegally remove the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki.
Addressing reporters, the House Deputy Minority Leader, Hon. Chukwuka Onyema, alongside other members said they got the information that some senators who were aided by policemen planned to sit covertly and illegally remove the Senate President.
The National Assembly is currently on its long recess and is expected to resume on September 26.
Onyema said some members of the PDP Caucus had been in the National Assembly complex to tidy up some committee businesses when they got wind of the alleged plot.
He added that his members would keep vigil to ensure that the unlawful impeachment proceeding do not happen.
He said: “As you all know that the National Assembly is on recess but committee work is ongoing. We were busy doing our committee work when information was brought to us that the Senate Chambers was being forcefully evaded by a couple of senators led by Senator Ali Ndume, Senator Adamu Abdullahi and Senator Ovie Omo-Agege.
“And their aim of invasion of the Senate when all senators have gone on recess; they wanted to evade the Senate chambers to come and sit illegally and impeach the Senate President illegally when everybody is out on recess.”
According to him, “We also have it on good authority that they are planning to come back this night and tomorrow morning aided by our own security forces that are meant to protect lives and property of Nigerians.
“They are now the ones aiding these dissident senators to come and truncate democracy.
“You might think they want to take over the Senate but that’s not what they want to do, they want to truncate this democracy of ours.
“But we the PDP Caucus, minority caucus, have decided that we are going to stay here, we’ll keep vigil and wait to see what is going to happen tonight and tomorrow night.”
Continuing, the House Minority Leader said: “We are calling on all Nigerians to stay awake with us because this is not a rape on the National Assembly but a rape on democracy which concerns you and I.
“And if we allow this to happen, then we might as well go back to when we had a military junta and we should all forget about democracy.
“So that’s what we said we’ll tell the people. We are right here at the National Assembly; it’s six o’clock; we are supposed to be on recess…We also have some information that some policemen have arrived and we want to find out what they’re doing here.
“If you all go to the Senate chambers, you’ll see that it’s locked up and barricaded with chains because nobody is supposed to be sitting.
“So if we are going to allow some senators to attempt what happened in Benue State which alone is an illegality in its entirety and they now want to bring it to the National Assembly; that’ll show you what our leadership, the executive wants to turn this country into.”
The group also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to stop the attempt by the senators in question to thwart the present democracy.
