IPOB, Budget Delay Top Agenda As Senate Resumes
Two contentious issues – the way the Federal Government is managing the separatist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and how the National Assembly will tackle budget delays- will engage senators as they return to the red chamber Tuesday.
The propriety or otherwise of declaring the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) a terrorist group by the Federal Government will be part of issues to engage Senate’s attention as it resumes from its nine-week recess.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Petitions, Sam Anyanwu, whose committee had in the past investigated many contentious issues, said that the alleged human rights abuses which resulted from the encounter between soldiers and members of IPOB would not be overlooked by the Upper Chamber.
He believed that the military went beyond its bounds to have meted out what he described as most inhuman treatment to the agitators.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, after declaring as unconstitutional the proscription of IPOB and tagging it a terrorist group, hinted last week that the Senate would investigate the military operation in the Southeast to identify who were involved in the alleged abuse of professionalism that had attracted so much criticism.
“I want to also make it clear that the National Assembly intends to embark on a fact-finding investigation aimed at determining what actually happened during the period of the military exercise in the Southeast.
“We want to be able to sift the facts from the fiction and determine who did what. It is quite clear that all the facts are not yet known. We assure Nigerians that there will be no cover up. We intend to lay the facts bare,” Saraki had said.
It was also confirmed that the Senate leadership has been meeting with critical stakeholders in the brewing crisis like the South East Caucus in the National Assembly as well as the Northern Senators Forum to ensure that debate on the matter does not worsen the issue at hand.
The consultation between the leadership and the Northern and South East Caucus was said to have been informed by the need to get lawmakers across all divides to embrace peaceful disposition particularly in their utterances as the Senate re-opens plenary session.
According to sources, Saraki also used the opportunity of the zonal meetings to clarify his statement against the manner in which IPOB was pronounced proscribed by the Southeast Governors as well as the way it was tagged a terrorist group by the army.
The Senate President’s statement has however attracted criticism from some lawmakers in both chambers of the National Assembly.
House of Representatives’ Chief Whip, Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, in condemning Saraki’s utterances described the Senate President’s declaration as “a mere political statement” that portrayed the nation’s Number Three citizen as “a controversial leader.”
Ado-Doguwa said, “I am sure the Senate President was only expressing his personal opinion, which I further believe was not a good one in the given circumstances. The Nigerian Armed forces in my opinion are doing their best professionally and in the best interest of a united Nigeria. Even the Southeastern state governors have declared the activities of Kanu’s IPOB as illegal and therefore proscribed. He (Senate President) can’t cry more than the bereaved.
“Considering the attacks meted out to innocent Nigerians by the IPOB group in the Southeast and indeed the nationalistic conduct of the northern governors and the prompt action they took to stop possible reprisals in the North, the Senate President’s statement was to say the least, unnecessary.”
Also, a lawmaker representing Plateau South Senatorial District, Senator Jeremiah Useni, who is a retired Lieutenant General, supported the military operation and alleged that IPOB members were terrorists.