Senate denies Melaye is major reason for IGP summons

The Senate has spoken against criticisms that it was forced to act and summon the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, because a fellow senator was affected.

The Senate denied that the chief reason it insisted that Idris, should appear before it was because of the travails of Senator Dino Melaye.

The Senate made the claim through its spokesperson, Sabi Abdullahi, when he briefed newsmen at the National Assembly on Wednesday.

The denial came after the Senate had on Wednesday April 25, adjourned its plenary in solidarity with Melaye who was a day earlier, arrested and humiliated by men of the Police Force.

Before adjourning the day’s plenary, the Senate resolved to visit Melaye at the National Hospital Abuja where he was placed under arrest by police and to summon the IGP to explain the force’s action against the embattled senator.

Abdullahi speaking on Wednesday argued, “Yes, he (IGP) was supposed to appear today (Wednesday) but he did not appear. This is democracy and democracy is all about the people. In the course of all of this, there are many wrong impressions that he was invited because of the incident with Senator Dino Melaye.

“This is part of the truth because it is only one side of it and the major reason is the general state of insecurity which seems not to abate, that the Senate is concerned about and felt that he has a lot of information to put us through what he is doing. We are all victims of killings one way or another. If you are not from Benue or other states affected, it’s likely you have a relative or someone who’s from there.”

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According to him, the Senate has always risen up to speak on cases of insecurity in the country and has not been sensational about it.

“We organised a security summit. They were all invited and he came. I want us to be dispassionate about this. Let’s remove sensationalisation. We will not tolerate or condone things that go against the promotion of democracy in the country,” he added.

On why the Senate Committee on Judiciary was not able to present its report on the impeachment of President Muhammad Buhari as expected on Wednesday, he said that it was because “they’ve not finished their work. They’re still working on it.”

The Senate had asked the committee to deliberate on the call for the impeachment of President Muhammadu Buhari by some senators over his neglect of the National Assembly’s approval before spending $496 million for the purchase of aircraft from the United States.

 

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