|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives Yusuf Suleiman Lasun, has condemned the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris, over his successive failures to appear before the Senate to brief the lawmakers on issues of pervasive insecurity in the country.
Lasun told reporters at the sidelines of the First Ordinary Session of the Fourth Legislature of the ECOWAS parliament, which commenced in Abuja on Thursday that it was unfortunate that the IGP does not understand the precepts of democracy, warning that such behavior will not augur well with the Nigerian democratic experiment.
The IGP failed to appear before the Senate at plenary on Wednesday for the third time in two weeks, to speak on the incessant killings across the country and the inhuman treatment unleashed on Senator Dino Melaye (APC, Kogi West) by the police over alleged gun running. The lawmakers later passed a vote of no confidence in Idris, and announced that he was not fit to hold any office, both home and abroad.
The IGP in his reaction has however noted that he owes the lawmakers no apologies, which further infuriated the senators, who threatened to take drastic measures to compel him to appear before them.
Speaking further on the saga, Lasun said “it is simply because the man does not understand his job and does not understand democracy. In democracy nobody is bigger than summon, anybody can be summoned and you just go and state your own part. He is just grand standing and does not understand what is called representative democracy.
“He has forgotten that he is working for Nigerians and must be responsible to some people and the first arm of government that anybody is responsible to is the parliament and the lawmakers are responsible to the Nigerian public,” Lasun lamented.
When asked if the National Assembly will take a more hardened position against the IGP, Lasun expressed what appears to be helplessness in the face of the alleged brazen assault on the legislature saying “we may not take a hardened position, the power to compel the IGP to appear is being thwarted, twisted and not being obeyed so what do we do? It is just lack of understanding of representative democracy and is mere grandstanding.”
Innocent Odoh, Abuja
