Uzodinma emerges Southern Senators’ Forum chair

Southern Senators’ Forum, on Wednesday, elected new leaders to champion the affairs of the group till the end of the 8th Senate.

The new chairman is Senator Hope Uzodinma who heads the Senate committee on Customs and Excise. Other members of the executive include Senators Stella Oduah, Matthew Urhoghide, Mao Ohuabunwa andSolomon Adeola, among others.

Briefing Senate Correspondents after its meeting on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, said the group has decided to elect new leaders so as to enable southern lawmakers take uniform positions on issues affecting the three geopolitical zones of South East, South South and South West.

Akpabio said southern lawmakers will no longer fold its hands and allow issues affecting them to go unresolved. He said going forward, their people will get quality representation.

Meanwhile, the Senate committee on Power has blamed defaulting agencies of government regarding the electrocution of over 30 persons last April at a football viewing center in Calabar, Cross River State.

The committee lamented that it was sad that those agencies which were supposed to ensure due diligence to secure lives simply failed to perform their duties.

Read also: UNIOSUN students in violent protests over disappearance of their colleagues

It adopted a report of the investigation conducted by Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency, which, among others, pointed to serious technical flaws on the part of the distribution companies and concluded that government must take disciplinary measures against those agencies.

It observed that the 11KV overhead line feeding the said substation is about 4.5 kilometres from the Amika injection substation and traverses over trees along the route all the way to the Nyaghasang distribution substation.

“Branches of the ornamental trees were seen touching the line in several places. And that the connections from the overhead lines to the fuses were just with twisted strands of aluminum conductors and the down-drops were XLPE copper cables,” chairman of the committee, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe noted, while reading the report.

 

RipplesNigeria ….without borders, without fears

Click here to download the Ripples Nigeria App for latest updates

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now