Posted by By ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Abuja on
Ahead of Tuesday's reconvention of senators after about a week break to enable members of the upper house participate in the 2006 census, senators are already sharply divided over the plot to remove Deputy Senate President, Senator Ibrahim Mantu
Ahead of Tuesday's reconvention of senators after about a week break to enable members of the upper house participate in the 2006 census, senators are already sharply divided over the plot to remove Deputy Senate President, Senator Ibrahim Mantu, who chairs the National Assembly Joint Constitution Review Committee (JCRC).
Daily Sun gathered that senators, who are opposed to the move, premised their stand on the grounds that Senator Sule Yari Gandi, who is leading the campaign for Mantu's removal, failed, at the Senate's closed door session to prove the allegation of 'money sharing" against Mantu. According to them, Gandi only said that the House of Representatives had indicted the Deputy Senate President over the 2005 hajj exercise.
' You see, issue of money is one thing that is capable of tearing the entire Senate apart. When senators hear that they are being short-changed, they are always usually angry. So when we learnt that N1.2 billion meant for the senators was in his (Mantu's) possession, we called an executive session, and asked the senators who were said to have collected money to say so, but nobody could prove the allegation. In fact senators started hissing, because they felt their time was wasted for nothing.
'But that is not to say that money has not exchanged hands. The money was, however, meant for members of the JCRC and not for the whole senators, as alleged by Gandi. You see, you cannot handle committee work without getting patronage from people who want your mind directed at what they want. It is the normal practice, I'm sure it is such money Gandi and co are referring to," one of the sources said.
Corroborating the above claim, Senator Victor Oyofo (PDP, Edo), who insisted that 'nobody can remove Mantu," told National Assembly correspondents at the weekend that those plotting the deputy senate president's removal have no case against him.
'Some of the things they are talking about is complete nonsense. They are talking about hajj operations, what has hajj operations got to do with Senate business? We didn't put Mantu as deputy senate president because of hajj operations, so operations can't remove him.
'All the things they are fabricating against Mantu are part of the agenda by those who are anti-third term, which I don't have any problem with. On any issue, there are those who are for and those who are against. So if people are attacking Mantu because he is for third term, I can understand and he himself should expect that attack," Oyofo said.
When asked to comment on the purported claim that President Obasanjo had waded into the crisis by appealing to Gandi to cease fire, Oyofo simply said: ' Beg Yari Gandi? Please give me a break!"
Meanwhile the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) has called on the National Assembly to, as a matter of urgency, probe the expenditure of the JCRC, with a view to uncovering the alleged fraud involving the Mantu committee.
In a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Osita Okechukwu, the group claimed that an organisation budgeted N5 billion to sponsor the alteration of the 1999 constitution, with a view to getting tenure extension for President Obasanjo.
The group equally claimed that the confab that was held last year was funded from the same source. While describing the organisation as a threat to national security, CNPP called on the lawmakers to put the on-going constitutional amendment exercise in abeyance and to concentrate on the passage of the electoral bill among other bills currently before them.