Politics Nigerian Senate Defends Obanikoro's Confirmation Despite #EkitiGate

[abujagirl]

The Nigerian senate has defended its position in confirming Musliu Obanikoro despite his alleged involvement in election rigging.

Addressing newsmen after the confirmation, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Publicity, Enyinnaya Abaribe said, ''There are allegations against Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, but in our law and the constitution of Nigeria, anything that is a mere allegation that is not a court decision is nothing but a mere allegation. The laws of Nigeria is very clear; you are innocent until proven guilty, so that is what played out on the floor of the Senate''.

''The Senators who addressed the press conference and spoke otherwise of Senator Obanikoro are enjoying a privilege. This is because some of them have EFCC cases, and they are still in the senate because of this privilege of being innocent until proven guilty. So they cannot go to a press conference, and try to convict somebody when the person has not been convicted by a court of law. The Senate is not a court of law and even when the Senate conducts its own investigation, it passes it to the appropriate body for prosecution" .

#Obanikoro

 

[kayode ajayi]

The confirmation of Obanikoro as Minister by the senate in spite of the raging controversy on the #Ekitigate is an indication that there is no true separation of power.

For the senate to clear Obanikoro shows that the senate cannot excercise an independent mindset other than that of the executive. Obanikoro resigned his appointment as a minister few months ago. The truth is that his resignation was a mere academic because the post was reserved for him to come back and occupy.

If the senate are made of men who meant well for Nigeria they should have declined his appointment on the ground that no single individual has an exclusive reserve to any public office.

Rather for the senate to engage cognitive circumspection, the members of the senate has limited thier reasoning to the Ekitigate and thus discharged the argument while usurping the power of a law court. Not knowing that, " good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while the bad people will always find a way round the law"-Plato.

Nigeria indeed need men of integrity to change what governance ought to be and the way it should be practised.