Senators Move Against Buhari

The Senate was on Wednesday thrown into a rowdy session when a lawmaker, Biodun Olujimi, accused President Muhammadu Buhari of losing authority on his administration.

Mrs. Olujimi, PDP-Ekiti, was responding to a motion on the face-off between Nigeria’s security agencies raised by Dino Melaye, Kogi-APC.

Officials of the State Security Services, SSS, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, were involved in a showdown on Tuesday when EFCC operatives attempted to arrest the immediate past Director-General of the SSS, Ekpenyong Ita.

A similar scenario also played out when SSS operatives prevented the anti-graft agency from arresting the former Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ayo Oke.

Presenting the motion, Mr. Melaye called on the Senate to take an urgent action on the incidents he described as “recipe for national disaster”.

“Mr. President, the media and the social media, print and electronics have been awash with a disaster that took place yesterday. The EFCC went to the residence of the former Director General of the SSS, Ita Ekpeyong, to effect an arrest and the Directorate of State Security stopped the EFCC from arresting him. That created environmental brouhaha. The whole environment and neighbours were stopped from lawfully gaining entrance into their homes because of this confusion.

“Same yesterday, the EFCC wanted to arrest the former DG NIA, Mr. Oke. Also, the officers of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency stopped that arrest. We are not here to say who is at blame. We have been embarrassed before the international community. That two sister agencies will engage in fisticuffs, arrest and stoppage of arrests. Mr. President, this is a recipe for national disaster.”

Commenting on Mr. Melaye’s motion, Mrs. Olujimi said President Buhari had lost his authority as ‘nobody’ was in charge of the current administration.

“Right now, we have a situation whereby nobody is in charge of anything and we cannot honestly blame anyone for what is happening. The truth is that you cannot go to the house of a security agent, a man who had kept the secrets of Nigeria for so long, and just try to arrest him like chicken.