Senators move to shut down economy, impeach Jonathan
Demand automatic tickets
• Commence compilation of president's sins
More trouble looms for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as senators have joined the battle against the party and President Goodluck Jonathan.
Senators have vowed to show solidarity with embattled Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, by refusing to work on the 2015 budget
They have also resolved to shut down the economy and move against President Jonathan as they have started compiling alleged impeachable offences against him.
Also, the lawmakers have pointed fingers at the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance Minister, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for "deliberately starving the National Assembly of our statutory allowances for the second month now."
However, they opened a window of reconciliation: they want automatic tickets for senators angling for a return to the chamber, while the president should compel Okonjo-Iweala to release their four quarterly allocation "which should have been paid since October."
Drama started yesterday when senators filed into the chamber for plenary and the legislative business of the day. With the absence of Senate President, David Mark, his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, led other principal officers, including Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, Senate Whip, Bello Gwarzo and Minority Whip, Ganiyu Solomon, into the chamber after a 30-minute delay.
Shortly after the opening prayer and some announcements, Ndoma-Egba moved a motion that all items on the Order Paper for the day "be stood down," and Solomon, who observed that though no reason was given for the adjournment, seconded the motion.
Thereafter, Ekweremadu announced that the PDP caucus would meet in the Senate president's conference room for a brief meeting. Banging hard on the gavel, he adjourned plenary till today. The meeting lasted less than 10 minutes
But a ranking senator, who asked not be named told Daily Sun why lawmakers were at daggers-drawn with the president and the party.
His words: "The party did not protect us during last Saturday's ward congresses. We have decided that there will be no sitting; there will be no legislative business. Jonathan has lost the Senate. He has left us at the mercy of governors to treat us anyhow and they have removed everybody from the congress.
"We are not doing the jobs of the governors yet, they want to decide for us how to do our own jobs and all of them are saying we are not coming back! What kind of nonsense is that?
"So, we decided we will shut down government and let us all know what is happening. There is nothing else to lose. Every morning, we will show up and adjourn. The PDP senators are dissatisfied about what is happening in our party. Once we get into plenary, we will adjourn and as we do that, we will do solidarity with Tambuwal. We may even commence his impeachment. Since we are going down, we are going to go down with him.
"Let us all go down except he makes a U-turn and treats us the same way he is treating PDP governors right now. If he is giving them automatic tickets, then, every PDP senator that wants to return to the Senate must be given automatic tickets." -THE SUN
Demand automatic tickets
• Commence compilation of president's sins
More trouble looms for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as senators have joined the battle against the party and President Goodluck Jonathan.
Senators have vowed to show solidarity with embattled Speaker of the House of Representatives
They have also resolved to shut down the economy and move against President Jonathan as they have started compiling alleged impeachable offences against him.
Also, the lawmakers have pointed fingers at the Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance Minister, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala for "deliberately starving the National Assembly of our statutory allowances for the second month now."
However, they opened a window of reconciliation:
Drama started yesterday when senators filed into the chamber for plenary and the legislative business of the day. With the absence of Senate President, David Mark, his Deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, led other principal officers, including Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, Senate Whip, Bello Gwarzo and Minority Whip, Ganiyu Solomon, into the chamber after a 30-minute delay.
Shortly after the opening prayer and some announcements, Ndoma-Egba moved a motion that all items on the Order Paper for the day "be stood down," and Solomon, who observed that though no reason was given for the adjournment, seconded the motion.
Thereafter, Ekweremadu announced that the PDP caucus would meet in the Senate president's conference room for a brief meeting. Banging hard on the gavel, he adjourned plenary till today. The meeting lasted less than 10 minutes
But a ranking senator, who asked not be named told Daily Sun why lawmakers were at daggers-drawn with the president and the party.
His words: "The party did not protect us during last Saturday's ward congresses. We have decided that there will be no sitting; there will be no legislative business. Jonathan has lost the Senate. He has left us at the mercy of governors to treat us anyhow and they have removed everybody from the congress.
"We are not doing the jobs of the governors yet, they want to decide for us how to do our own jobs and all of them are saying we are not coming back! What kind of nonsense is that?
"So, we decided we will shut down government and let us all know what is happening. There is nothing else to lose. Every morning, we will show up and adjourn. The PDP senators are dissatisfied about what is happening in our party. Once we get into plenary, we will adjourn and as we do that, we will do solidarity with Tambuwal. We may even commence his impeachment. Since we are going down, we are going to go down with him.
"Let us all go down except he makes a U-turn and treats us the same way he is treating PDP governors right now. If he is giving them automatic tickets, then, every PDP senator that wants to return to the Senate must be given automatic tickets." -THE SUN
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