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A day after his resumption of plenary, controversial lawmaker, Dino Melaye, has demanded an apology from President Muhammadu Buhari for questioning the role of ranking lawmakers.
Rising on Order 14 of the Senate Standing Orders, 2015 (as amended) on Thursday, the controversial senator who resumed plenary on Wednesday, a month after he was arrested, detained and arraigned by the police for alleged gun running, said he found the President’s remarks offensive.
According to him, the president’s comments was not only unpresidential but an assault on the institution of the National Assembly.
Melaye who also presented video CDs of the president’s remarks, insisted that the National Assembly has been carrying out its constitutional duties effectively.
He said it was wrong for the Comptroller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali, to lead a delegation of Buhari Support Organisation to the President, pointing out that as head of a paramilitary organisation, he should be non-partisan.
“Last week, the President in the Presidential Villa, while addressing a delegation of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, said he doesn’t know what we are doing in the National Assembly. He said some of us had been in the National Assembly for over 10 years and we have nothing to show for it. And I felt this statement is not only unpresidential but an assault on my person and the institution of the National Assembly where I am proudly a member.
“I am very proud to be a member of the national assembly, I have been for 11 years. For the president of the federal republic of Nigeria to so speak in low tunes about the national assembly I begin to ask myself if Donald Trump will address the Congress or the senate of the United States of America in like manner.
“Such derogatory statements and insults on the National Assembly should not be allowed to go unnoticed.
“I want to call that Mr President, Muhammadu Buhari for using this un-parliamentary, unconstitutional language on the national assembly, apologise to the National Assembly and that is where most of their appointees draw inspiration from. That is why they disregard the National Assembly and even refuse to accept summon.
“We must also as an institution take a decision where heads of parastatals, ministries and agencies of government will continue to involve themselves in politics when by their calling by their oath of office they are not supposed to,” he said.
Ruling on the motion, Senate President Bukola Saraki, said the President may have been misquoted.
He, however, urged Melaye to present the CDs, even as he failed to referred the motion to the appropriate committee.
Speaking last week while he hosted members of the Buhari Support Organisation led by Hameed Ali, Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the President had carpeted members of the role of lawmakers who have served for more than two terms.
Buhari was widely quoted as saying: “Let anybody come and confront me publicly in the National Assembly. What have they been doing? Some of them have been there for 10 years. What have they been doing?”
OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja
