Anti-Saraki senator splits House of Reps

Fifteen honourables from the House of Reps have lashed out at the 11 members that waded into the Senate crisis to condemn lone-wolf Sen. Kabiru Marafa the upper chamber wants to sanction for disparaging the National Assembly.

Expressing their support for Marafa’s rights to express himself, the group said their colleagues who butted in to the crisis are newbies in legislating.

“It must be made clear to the legislators who are mostly new members that the two Houses of the National Assembly are independent and separate and by getting involved in the internal crisis of the Senate shows them to be busybodies and interlopers who know nothing about the running of a bicameral legislature,” the group of 15 said in statement issued on Sunday.

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“It is even more shocking that they were so quick to do the bidding of whoever their paymaster is that they moved even faster than the senate ethics committee set up to investigate the matter,” they said.

The so-called busybodies issued a statement Wednesday, lambasting the Zamfara Central senator for stewing over the Senate election all this while.

“It is indeed regrettable that eight months after the contest for leadership in the Senate ended, Marafa and his group have remained in electioneering mode,” they said.

Marafa, the spokesman of the Senate Unity Forum, a pro-Ahmad Lawan group bugging Saraki leadership, has been spitting venom so much he was petitioned by two senators weeks ago.

The Senate ethic committee investigating the matter sat and reported to the Senate without including Marafa’s defence.

However, the report spawned a protest by a group called Open Society for Good Governnace, leading to an abrupt ending of the plenary where Marafa could have been sanctioned last week.

The pro-Marafa honourables also re-echoed Marafa’s point that the fifth columnists in the Senate are trying to turn the 2016 budget proposal into a bargaining chip.

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“Since we are all entitled to our opinion, we agree with Senator Marafa that the budget distortions became a political tool in the hands of some legislators and their agenda was to use it for political negotiation,” they said.

Among the 15 honourables, who obviously belong to the Femi-Gbajabiamila faction of the APC caucus in the lower house, are Hons. John Dyegh, Lawal Gumau, Ahmad Kaita, Agunsoye Rotimi, Ali Madaki, Aminu Malle, Nazir Daura , and Muhammed Soba.

Others are Ismail Gadaka, Abdulrahman Shuaibu, Sunday Adepoju, Adekunle Akinlade, Ajibola Famurewa, Abdulmahmud Gaiya and Musa Adar.