Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of
\nRepresentatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu have condemned in the strongest terms
\ninsinuation from former Chairman of the All Progressive Congress, APC,
\nChief Bisi Akande that their elections into the leadership of the National
\nAssembly was facilitated by oil cabals.<\/p>\n
Chief Bisi Akande had on Sunday fingered fuel subsidy thieves and corrupt
\nbusinessmen as being behind the current crisis in the APC which culminated
\nin the emergence of Bukola Saraki as senate president and Yakubu Dogara as
\nspeaker of the House of Representatives<\/p>\n
The Senate President and the Speaker in a statement said the allegations
\nfrom Chief Akande was not only uncharitable but mischievous.<\/p>\n
Saraki said:<\/p>\n
\u201cOrdinarily, we would have ignored the report credited to Chief Akande but
\nfor the sole reason that some undiscerning readers might mistake the
\nfiction for the facts. We wish to state unequivocally that it was wrong
\nand mischievous for the statement by Chief Akande to link what happened on
\nthe floor of both chambers to some unnamed oil barons. We dare say that
\nthe entire story was the figment of the imagination of the author and we
\nmake bold to state that in the 7th Assembly, Senator Bukola Saraki was
\nChairman of the Senate Adhoc Committee which exposed the fraud and
\nmismanagement in the oil sector.<\/p>\n
A statement from the office of the Senate President reads:<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil Saraki\u2019s motion on the floor of the senate, no one was in the
\npicture of the rot in the sector or took any action. Therefore, Senator
\nSaraki will be the last person the oil barons will want to see as Senate
\nPresident. In that position, Saraki did not only lead his colleagues in
\nexposing the rot in the scheme but made very strong recommendations on how
\nthe system could be reformed and made corrupt- free. It is on record that
\nthrough his motion on the floor of the Senate, the House of
\nRepresentatives followed in what is to be known as Oil Subsidy probe which
\nthe Ministers of Finance and Petroleum summoned and at last over N500
\nbillion was saved.<\/p>\n
\u201cFurther to this, during the Senate hearing on the missing $20 billion,
\nSenator Saraki led the onslaught to both the Minister of Finance, Minister
\nof Petroleum and other federal agencies despite being in the ruling party
\nthen. To this effect, Senator Saraki refused to sign the final copy of the
\ncommittee\u2019s report but rather put forward a minority report with a press
\nstatement and went further to oppose the inclusion of kerosene subsidy in
\nthe 2015 budget as well as his opposition to Petroleum swap deal by NNPC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 8th Senate under Senator Saraki would give all necessary legislative
\nsupport to the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari to fight and
\nreduce corruption against the so called oil barons and for avoidance of
\ndoubt, we want to make it abundantly clear that it is totally false,
\nuntrue and calculated mischief to suggest that Senator Saraki\u2019s emergence
\nas Senate President was facilitated by oil barons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also speaking on the issue, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon.
\nYakubu Dogara, said that his election and acceptance was as a result of
\nhis capacity, experience, spirit of team player, incorruptibility and his
\nprogressive mind and which endeared him to his colleagues.<\/p>\n
In his reaction signed by his Special Adviser, Media and Public Affairs,
\nTuraki Hassan, Dogara said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe allegation by Chief Akande is unbecoming of a well-respected
\nelder-stateman and a former Interim National Chairman of the APC.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe challenge Chief Akande to name the so-called oil barons whom he
\nalleged sponsored the election of the Speaker and in case Chief Akande
\ndoes not know, the first investigative motion adopted by the 8th House of
\nRepresentatives under the leadership of the Rt. Hon. Speaker was to
\ninvestigate the allegation of fraud in the oil-swap contract awarded by
\nthe Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.<\/p>\n
\u201cA resolution instituting investigation into the allegation was passed
\nwith a resolve to constitute an Ad-hoc committee to investigate the NNPC,
\nas well as its subsidiary, Pipelines and Products Marketing Company over
\nthe swap contracts. How then can the House under the leadership of Mr.
\nSpeaker order investigation into activities of those who allegedly
\nsponsored his election. So, Chief Akande`s allegation is unfortunate and
\nuncharitable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu have condemned in the strongest terms insinuation from former Chairman of the All Progressive Congress,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n