Nigeria Senate lambaste Godswill Akpabio

      

The Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has reacted to the allegation that some senators were awarded contract by Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). The minister for Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, was rebuked by the senate for naming 3 senators Mathew Urhoghide   James Manager and Peter Nwaoboshi among the people that were awarded contracts by NDDC. The senate called the Akpabio's allegation as fallacy at the highest order.

             

The chairman, Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Senator Ayo Akinyelure (PDP) stated that the projects Akpabio referred to were constituent projects and that the lawmakers did not collect any fund to execute them. The senator from Ondo state said, “As a matter of fact, the submission of Senator Akpabio is a cheap blackmail which cannot be tenable anywhere in Nigeria. Senators are representatives of the people in the legislature and we have power of Appropriation. Projects allocated to us are put in the various ministries and agencies of government where they can be fully executed.

“Those of us from the Niger Delta region can lobby for some of the projects to be put in their various constituencies. That does not mean that the money for their execution was given to Senators. We don’t touch money here but influence projects to be executed in our constituencies. When that is done, the executive arm of government will advertise for contractors to bid for them, and award them, following due process.

“The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs was a senator in the 8th Senate. Did he not facilitate projects worth billions of naira to his own constituency through the NDDC?  The answer is yes,  he did. If he admits that they paid him the money for the execution of the contracts, then, it is a question of investigating who won the contracts.

“The allegation that members of the National Assembly from the Niger Delta region facilitated projects is a fallacy because being indigenes of the region they have the right to facilitate projects to their communities in the interest of their constituents.

“If I’m the chairman of the Niger Delta committee in the Senate and projects worth N200billion are to be allocated to the region, I will influence 10 per cent of it to my constituency. The projects are meant for Niger Delta region. Therefore, there is nothing wrong for the National Assembly members from the region to facilitate some of them to their constituencies.

  

Senator Peter Nwaoboshi while reacting to the allegation that he got 53 contracts in 2018 said, “This unsubstantiated allegation is in line with Mr Akpabio’s well-known agenda to continuously blackmail against me so as to keep diverting public attention away from the serious mismanagement of the NDDC by the Interim Management Committee (IMC) under his supervision and under the guise of a phantom forensic audit that has no operating time line “, he said.