Members of the All Progressives Congress in the Senate on Thursday said they were resolved to stop the re-appointment of Senator Musiliu Obanikoro as minister following his alleged indictment in the use of the military to rig the Ekiti governorship election in June last year.
Spokesperson of the APC Senate Caucus, Babafemi Ojudu, who spoke in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja, explained that other senators from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party were also being co-opted into the struggle.
He said APC senators had started mobilising themselves to frustrate Obanikoro’s clearance and approval for fresh appointment.
He said, “We will do everything possible to stop Obanikoro from being cleared as a minister. Ordinarily, being a former senator he is expected to take a bow and receive automatic clearance but in the present circumstance he has serious issues to clear.
“In a normal society, he should have been picked by security agents and quizzed over his involvement in the criminal act of using the military to subvert a democratic process.
“This is a man who used the name of President Goodluck Jonathan to intimidate and harass military officers. He even threatened to determine the fate of the soldier, as the then Minister of State for Defence, if he failed to carry out the alleged rigging plot.
“It is not only the APC senators that are involved in this struggle; senators from other political parties who are genuine democrats have pledged their loyalty for the noble cause. “
Meanwhile, Ojudu, representing Ekiti Central Senatorial District, has said that federal lawmakers from his state would set in motion procedures for the taking over of the legislative activities of the Ekiti State House of Assembly.
Ojudu explained that both chambers of the federal legislature would have taken over the responsibility of the state legislators if the Senate President, David Mark, had not halted the process in December last year.
He lamented that the alleged illegality being perpetrated by seven PDP members of the 26-member of the Ekiti Assembly would have been curtailed if Mark had not stopped a motion for the take-over at the upper legislative chamber.
He said, “We tried to bring it (motion for the takeover) to the Senate before we closed for Christmas break but it was not allowed by Senator David Mark.
“Three of us from Ekiti went to see him about it but he declined to allow us raise it.”
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