By Olusegun Lawrence Senator Kabiru Marafa has accused the Senate President, Bukola Saraki of masterminding the controversy surrounding the 2016 budget, saying it was as a result of the Supreme Court ruling directing him to face corruption trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT.
Marafa, who speaks for anti-Saraki Senators also said that Saraki not him should rather be suspended from the Senate.
Speaking with newsmen at the weekend, the senator wondered why issues like doctoring, padding and distortion of the 2016 budget came up only after the Supreme Court ruling.
The Senate had last week, directed its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to investigate Marafa’s alleged offensive remarks against the Senate and by extension , the National Assembly in the said interview granted by Senator Marafa, who amongst others, kicked against plan to purchase cars worth N4.7billion and secrecy of accounts of the entire National Assembly.
Marafa spoke further, “Nobody, I repeat, Nobody in that Senate, can suspend me over those remarks I made in the said interview, rather, it is the Senate President, Bukola Saraki , that should be suspended by the Senate for turning things upside down within the last eight months from forgery of Standing Orders to illegally increasing the number of Standing committees in the senate from 57 to 65 with attendant violation of ranking rules in their compositions and above all, refusing to resign as Senate President, in the face of trial on corruption charges at the Code of Conduct Tribunal ( CCT) and invariably battering the image of the Senate.
“He should remember that when the issue first came up in August or September last year, we didn’t tell him to resign and thus, cannot by whatever means now, gag us and gag our mouths; the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria gives us the right to say our opinion, to air our views and nobody can deny us that one.
”Honestly speaking, if am to comment on the controversy that has been trailing the 2016 budget in the Senate, I will say it is all the work of the 5th columnists there. You remember we woke up after 15 days or also of the receipt of the budget in the National Assembly. We woke up one day and the Senate President just came and said there is no budget, that the budget is stolen embarrassing everybody, but the following day the Speaker said is not stolen our own is here.
“Next they said the budget is doctored, next they said the budget is padded, next they said there are discrepancies all over the place we knew how they came into the leadership of the National Assembly or the Senate. Was it a coincidence that the issue of padding and everything just came up after the Supreme Court said go and face your trial?
“Suddenly we started hearing that we cannot pass the budget as we promised because there are discrepancies and so on and so forth. In a nutshell, all the noise about the budget are all about this issue of corruption trial or CCT trial that is all, no more no less”
On the invitation extended to him by the Ethics Committee, Marafa said he would honour it explaining that he couldn’t appear before it last Thursday because he was away in Kaduna.
