The Senate has dismissed as baseless and misleading reports suggesting a clash between the President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, and the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, during a recent executive session.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Sen. Yemi Adaramodu, made the clarification in a statement issued on Sunday, insisting that the reports misrepresented standard legislative processes as signs of internal discord.
The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to diverse media reports claiming that President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio and Leader of the Senate, Sen. Opeyemi Bamidele clashed during an executive session recently convened to deliberate whether the Senate should proceed on annual recess.
“The reports do not contain any iota of truth. In entirety, they misconstrue time-tested practices and traditions in the parliament worldwide, where members, regardless of their political leanings, leverage the instruments of parliamentary debates, questions or interpellations to discuss every initiative decisively and eclectically before approval or authorisation.”
According to the Senate spokesperson, vigorous debate remains a hallmark of parliamentary democracy and does not indicate disunity among members.
“The Senate, as our country’s highest law-making institution, is not different in any way. Like other parliaments, every bill, motion and proposal is always subjected to intense scrutiny in our Chamber almost on a daily basis.
“This entails robust debates to which members discuss and dissect every initiative before the Senate purely in the interest of over 230 million Nigerians,” he said.
Adaramodu stressed that the deliberations, whether in plenary or committee sessions, should not be mistaken for personal altercations or signs of division within the Senate leadership.
“Whether in the chamber or committee room, debates on policy issues should not be misconstrued as altercations among members, neither do they suggest any crack in the rank of the leadership,” he said.
Persecondnews recalls that tensions escalated on Wednesday, July 23, after Akpabio announced that the Senate would proceed on its annual recess, a decision that reportedly surprised several principal officers, who felt the matter should have first been discussed at leadership level.
Akpabio’s announcement sparked an argument about whether the chamber had fulfilled its constitutional mandate of sitting for at least 181 days.
The Senate Leader stood up and raised a point of order, stating that the Senate had not completed the requisite number of sitting days for the year.
While Bamidele’s observation was said to be technically accurate, senators were reportedly surprised that he challenged the Senate President so openly.
The Senate President calmly advised him to approach the chair, and subsequently convened an executive session to discuss the matter in private, before adjourning for the annual recess.
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