Senate has directed its committee on Judiciary to investigate the circumstances leading up to the invasion of an Abuja High Court which led to the rearrest of Omoyrle Sowore by alleged operatives of the Department of States Services, an event that took place one week today.
The senate directive for this investigation was sequel to a motion moved by senator Bamidele Opeyemi, in which he asked the senate not to pay deff ears to the outcry against the incident by Nigerians.
Senator Bamudele whio rose citing point of Order 43, noted that news has it that invasion of the court room session, was allegedly carried out b y members of the DSS, who were on a mission to effect the arrest of the Convener of #RevolutionNow, Omoyele Sowore, over alleged treason.
He said that the event that took place in the court was a regrettable one ; inimical to rule of law and democratic values and urged the Senate to rise up and investigate the incident and do the needful.
According to him, the senate still remains an institution upon which Nigerians who elected them to office, including the judiciary look up to in expressing their freedom and constitutional rights, warning that such expectations in democracy must never be disappointed.
He urged the senate therefore to mandate the committee on judiciary to investigate the allegations and report back to the senate , such as to guide the institution to know what truly transpired.
His words , “Mr President,the leadership and members of the judiciary are particularly concerned about this development, because they believed that the court room is meant to be a sanctuary.
“But for us, as a senate we can not begin to take a position, or analyse the issues based on conclusion without facts that we consider incontrovertible yet.
“Much as we can not jump in to conclusion, but we can not pretend that Nigerians are concerned about this development.
“The reason, I choose to come under order 43 is that so that we don’t debate on this issue that we don’t seem to have an incontrovertible facts yet.
“In view of this, I suggest we mandate our committee on National Security to investigate and report back to this senate”.
The senate President, Ahmad Lawan, in his ruling , reminded his colleagues that Order 43 does not require debate. He said he cannot function on allegations, hence the need to find out what truly happened.
The Senate commitee on Judiciary was mandated to investigate the incident and report bac k to the Senate in one week.
Similarly, the Federal Capital Territory’s N232.8 Appropriation Bill for the 2020 fiscal year was yesterday considered by the Senate.
The fast tracked consideration of the budget for the FCT comes barely twenty-four hours after the upper chamber received a formal request to that effect from President Muhammadu Buhari.
Leading the debate, Majority Leader of the Senate Senator Yahaya Abdullahi in a breakdown of budget said out of the sum of N232,875,365,947 budgeted, N53,876,241,095 is for personnel cost, N57,070,343,435 for overhead cost and N121,928,781,417 for capital projects.
He recalled that in the 2019 fiscal year, the FCT Administration received an Appropriation of N243,374,511,007 as its statutory budget.
A breakdown of the 2019 expenditure, according to Abdullahi, showed that the sum of N41,999,045,982.01 was spent on personnel costs, N32,445,971,579 on overheads and N46,292,431,523.09 on capital projects.
The Senate Leader stated that during the year 2019, a total sum of N120,737,449,084.07 accrued to the Federal Capital Territory as revenue, an amount which, according to the lawmaker, represents “about fifty percent level of performance.”
“The thrust of the FCT 2020 budget is to ensure an effective service oriented administration in order to ensure completion of ongoing projects and the provision of effective services to residents of the FCT,” Yahaya Abdullahi said.
Among projects to be implemented by the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) in the year 2020 are: provision of infrastructural facilities to districts and road construction in Jahi, Wuye and Karmo with the sum of N6.3 billion; reconstruction and finalisation of Lower Usman Dam and Gurara Road pegged at N1.5 billion, and N3.5 billion for proposed counterpart funding for Greater Abuja Water Supply.
Others are: construction of Cultural Centre and Millennium Tower at N1 billion; rehabilitation and expansion of Outer Southern Expressway from Villa Roundabout to Osex/Ring Road 1 Junction at N1 billion; N1.3 billion for completion of Roads B6, B12 and Circle Road, Abuja, Central Area, and N500 million for the provision of access road to Kabusa Garden.
While Senators George Thompson Sekibo (Rivers East) and James Manager (Delta South) expressed the opinion that the FCT budget be presented by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory to the National Assembly the Senate President explained that going that path would run contrary to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution which allows only a sitting President to present the country’s annual budget to a joint session of the National Assembly.
He however charged the Senate Committee on FCT to invite the Minister, Muhammad Bello, so as to review the performance of the FCTA in the 2019 fiscal year.
President of the Senate however expressed worry over the security situation of the FCT as he noted that there the 2020 budget if the FCT did not make provision for security .
His “I want to also ask whether we have so much provision in the National Priority budget of the FCT for Security.
“I’ve not seen anything for security here and I’m worried, because I think the security situation in the FCT, not necessarily inside the Federal Capital itself, but the satellite towns where people are kidnapped including one of our royal fathers.
“I believe that we need to look into that, definitely the security needs some attention from us, even if there is no provision. We should be able to prioritize and see which other subheads we can take money from to provide for security.”
The Federal Capital Territory Statutory Appropriation Bill, 2020, which was referred by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, to the Committee on FCT for further legislative work

By: Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja