Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory
(FCT), Domingo Alaba Obende yesterday said All Progressives Congress
(APC) lawmakers might not toe the position of the party on President
Goodluck Jonathan’s state of emergency proclamation.
Senate will meet in plenary today to either ratify or reject the
state of emergency in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states, in fulfillment of
Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution which stipulated that two-thirds
majority of each of the Senate and House of Representatives must be
secured to make the proclamation legal. The party had last week rejected
the state of emergency in the three states.
Speaking with newsmen yesterday, Obende reiterated that though his
party was against the state of emergency “we, as senators, have rights
to our views and I have a right to my opinion. “APC, as a body, has a
right to hold a view.
“We have a caucus and we have not met to take a decision but we have
to move with the tide. We can see the nation is drifting and it is our
duty to arrest the drift.
“It is not about the position of APC but the nation. I believe the
state of emergency is not about APC but whatever we do will be in the
best interest of the country,” Obende said. On the delay in the
consideration of the 2013 returned budget, Obende said: “As far as we
are concerned, we already have a budget and ministries have received
their quarterly allocations.
“If you say you are bringing an amendment, that means we are going to
reverse ourselves and that will be difficult. “What is before us is a
supplementary budget and that is the same position with the House of
Representatives.” Whatever is agreed at the Senate is what will be
agreed at the House of Representatives.”
source: the sun
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