Senator representing Kogi West in the National Assembly, Dino Melaye, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to apologise for making uncomplimentary remarks against members of the National Assembly.
Speaking when a delegation of the Buhari Support Organisation (BSO) visited him at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, last week, the president said that some of the legislators had spent many years in the National Assembly without having anything to show for it.
His words: “Let anybody come and confront me publicly in the National Assembly. What have they been doing? Some of them have been there for 10 years. What have they been doing?”
But in his reaction, Melaye described the president’s statement as not only “unpresidential” but “unparliamentary.”
Stressing that the National Assembly as well as its members felt slighted, Melaye said the president should tender an apology.
“I want to call on Mr. President, Muhammadu Buhari, for using this unparliamentary, unpresidential and unconstitutional statement on the National Assembly, to apologise. I call on him to apologise for using this language and that is where most of the appointees draw their inspiration from. That is why they disregard this National Assembly,” he said.
Melaye said as a senator who came to the National Assembly in 2007, about eleven years ago, he was unhappy about the president’s statement.
“Last week, the president in the Presidential Villa while addressing the delegation of the Buhari Campaign Organisation and this was televised in Channels Television and AIT and I have a copy to tender.
“The president in his address said he doesn’t know what we are doing in the National Assembly. He said that some of us have been in the National Assembly for over 10 years and we have nothing to show for it. This statement is not only unpresidential, but it’s an assault on my person and the institution of the National Assembly where I am proudly a member. Such derogatory statement and insult on the National Assembly should not be allowed to go unnoticed.
“For the president to so speak in low tones about the National Assembly, I begin to ask myself if Donald Trump will address the Senate of United States in like manner,” he said.
Melaye said the statement such as the one made by the president was responsible for the refusal of top government officials to honour the invitations of the National Assembly.
“One then begins not to wonder why we will summon the IG and he refused to come. We are not then surprised why Directors-General and heads of agencies will refuse to honour the summons of the Senate. Because the body language and the statement of the president are already demeaning the integrity of the National Assembly,” he said.
Melaye also described as improper, the leadership of the president’s campaign group by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Hammed Ali.
He said by virtue of his position in government, Ali should not head the supporters’ group of the president.
