Budget Padding: Mind Your Business APC Replies PDP
Princess-Ekwi Ajide
The All Progressives Congress, APC has described the Peoples Democratic Party’s PDP, call for the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, to step aside over the matter of an unsubstantiated allegation of budget padding by the Senate as nothing short of crass buffoonery.
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Congress, Felix Morka Esq, said the PDP has again showed itself as an entity bereft of focus and purpose, and like a political scavenger, always quick to feast on sham without thought and consideration for facts and institutional due process.
It says it is ridiculous that the PDP that is unable to govern itself would seek to dictate to the Senate how it should conduct its proceedings and handle internal matters of discipline of its members and wondered how the suspension of Senator Abdul Ningi without first referring the matter to a Senate standing committee proof of a cover up.
How is a committee of the full Senate conducting an inquiry in the matter, in full public view on national television, less independent and transparent or in violation of the Senate’s standing rules or any other laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria?
The APC noted that contrary to what it termed PDP’s twisted argument, the Senate neither violated its standing rules and orders nor the Constitution by not referring the matter to a relevant committee but that, placing the matter before the committee of the whole, under public scrutiny, underscores the premium the Senate placed on transparency in the conduct of its proceedings.
According to the statement, it is clear for all to see that the author of the allegation was unable to offer any substantiation or justification and eerily comical that the PDP, a party with a sordid legacy of monumental corruption would suggest that the President of the Senate should turn himself to anti-graft agencies for investigation.
The statement further noted that legislative authority of the Senate includes the authority to make its own rules and adopt its own procedures for discharging its constitutional mandate which extends to modifying its rules and standing orders in accordance with its rules and procedures, and in observance of all applicable legal and constitutional standards.
It notes that the Senate also has the authority to discipline its members in accordance with its institutional and constitutional due process as such, the Senate President has done nothing wrong to warrant him stepping aside on account of this or any other disclosed matter.
The statement advised the PDP to quit being a meddlesome interloper, expend its lean energy on revamping its decrepit institution, and leave the Senate to carry on its important role of deepening democracy and stabilising the country.
