Presidential Adviser Enang apologises to senate over AGF row

Ita Enang, senior special assistant to the president on legislative matters (senate), has apologised to the senate over the comments of the representative of the attorney-general of the federation at a meeting with the committee on judiciary, human rights and legal matters.

Tendering the apology while fielding questions from journalists in Abuja on Friday, Enang said it was wrong for Okoi Obono-Obla, representative of the attorney-general, to have said that the senate had no right to have invited Abubakar Malami, attorney-general.

Enang was a member of the senate in the seventh assembly.

“I heard the statements after and I want to apologise to the distinguished senate, to the committee on judiciary and to the distinguished senators,” he said.

“That statement ought not to have been made: the attorney-general is attorney-general of the federation, appointed by Mr President, cleared by the senate and responsible to the federation.

“We are going into this matter, we will handle this matter but I first have to tender my unreserved apology for the impression it may have created to the distinguished senate, senators and the committee members.”

On Tuesday, the senate summoned Malami to appear before its committee on judiciary, human rights and legal matters to explain why he charged Senate President Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu, his deputy, to court for alleged forgery.

The AGF was represented by Obono-Obla, special assistant to the president on prosecution attached to the federal ministry of justice.

The committee then walked Obono-Obla out of the chamber, saying: “Our invitation is for the AGF and not you. So, we cannot listen to you. We will report back to the plenary for us to take decision on this.”

Obono-Obla, who spoke to journalists while leaving the senate chamber, said the alleged forgery suit against Saraki and Ekweremadu, is not an internal affair of the senate.

“The senate had no right to invite the AGF… the AGF is not answerable to the senate,” he had said.

But Enang said the issue would be resolved, explaining that Malami was unavoidably absent.

“The attorney-general spoke with me yesterday on the matter in the morning that he is on official assignment on behalf of the country,” he said.

“When he is in, we will make arrangement for him to respond appropriately: we want to apologise pending when he is back to respond appropriately.”

Comments

Understanding Prof. Yemi Osinbajo - Abraham Ogbodo

Abraham Ogbodo I am trying to understand Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Often, he speaks out of character. That is, he talks as if he is Vice President before he is a professor of law, even when I know that the latter comes first. The man wasn’t like this when he was the attorney general of Lagos State and a teacher at the Law Faculty of the University of Lagos. Then, his statements were measured and as a seasoned lawyer, based on facts. But today, Osinbajo is sounding like Adams Oshiomhole, a union leader, who by the grace of God, became governor of Edo State for eight years. The revelations about big thefts in the economy had come more from Adams than even Ibrahim Magu, chairman of the EFCC. It was Adams who said former petroleum minister; Mrs. Diezani Allison-Madueke alone stole 13 billion British pounds from the national treasury. That is like saying she stole in raw cash almost twice as much as the entire fortune of Alhaj...

Nigerian govt warns rival labour union, ULC, against strike

Following the threat by the United Labour CONGRESS, ULC, to go on a nationwide strike from September 15 , the federal government on Thursday declared the proposed strike illegal. The strike notice was dated September 8 and is expected to lapse on September 15. Some of the issues highlighted by the ULC, a coalition of various workers’ unions, include: the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment should set up a task force immediately to carry out factory inspection; Government should review the privatisation of Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN; and the Army and Police should withdraw their officers from different work places where they are currently stationed as they intimidate and harass workers in such establishment. The union, a breakaway from the NLC, also demanded the immediate release of its “Registration Certificate.” The ULC is headed by Joe Ajaero, General Secretary of National union of Electricity Employees, NUEE, and Igwe Achese, President of Natio...

The world will have to learn to live with a nuclear North Korea. The alternatives are even worse

The worst possible outcome of the crisis in the Korean peninsula would be a nuclear war. The second worst would be a conventional one. From these simple platitudes everything else follows. The North Korean regime is undoubtedly vile. Its bombs are unnecessary and bought at the cost of great human suffering. The long-term goal of any foreign policy must be to await and, so far as possible, to hasten the end of the dictatorship. But military intervention is no longer a credible option. It could be argued that it never was. The US military seems to have believed since at least 1995 that any war on the Korean peninsula would result in unacceptable casualties and costs. In that case one of the ironies of the present situation is that North Korea has proved, by building one, that it never actually needed a nuclear deterrent. The threat that its conventional artillery and army posed to the South Korean capital, Seoul, where 10 million people live in their range, was enough to preserve ...

ATTENCAO

Search This Blog