By Ishaya Ibrahim
Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe has courted trouble with the presidency for quite a while, throwing jibes at government’s policies and President Muhammadu Buhari at every given opportunity.
Shortly after the government recognised June 12 as democracy day, Abaribe declared at the floor of the Senate that December 31 should also be considered as democracy destruction day.
Abaribe was referring to then Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s coup of December 31, 1983 in which he toppled the democratic elected government of Shehu Shagari.
“I want to also propose another day since we are now moving in the right direction, saying that democracy is needed, I want to propose that we also designate 31st December as Democracy Destruction Day because that was the day that this same president did a coup.”
When President Buhari told the Arch Bishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby that the killings across Nigeria were being carried out by those trained by former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Abaribe called the President ‘totally incompetent.’
“I recall that on the matter of herdsmen and farmers’ clashes, two explanations were given by highly ranked security officials. The inspector general of Police said that these killings were as a result of laws being passed by states.
“Secondly, the defence minister said these killings were as a result of the blockade of grazing routes. And we continued to look at all these explanations.
“Yesterday (April 12) in London, the commander-in-chief and president of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari said that these killings were as a result of the people who were trained by Muammar Gaddafi, implying that these people who are doing the killings in Nigeria are invaders from outside of Nigeria.
“If so, it validates my last point that when a commander-in-chief says he cannot take care of invaders, why is he still a commander-in-chief? Why do we still continue to indulge this president that goes around to tell everybody outside this country that he is totally incompetent? It is obvious,” Abaribe said.
Early in June when President Buhari was in London on a medical trip and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo was attending a summit of African leaders, Abaribe declared that there was vacuum in government.
“I simply want to bring to the attention of this chamber and all Nigerians and to ask the question, the acting president is the person who is at the head of government now, but we have a serious problem in Nigeria today. We have nobody in Nigeria who is at the head of the government. The law and the procedure and all the laws in Nigeria states that you cannot have a vacuum. Today the acting president is outside the country and so there is a vacuum.”
When President Buhari submitted the 2018 budget to the National Assembly, Abaribe said the budget was fictitious.
“What was done in 2017 when less than 15 percent of that budget was released? Nothing was done. That was why I said the 2018 budget is fictitious. If that is the word that the Senate leader is bothered about, I withdraw the word ‘fictitious’ and say that the 2018 budget is totally imaginary because nothing was done in 2017. That is a fact that we all know,” he said.
Abaribe has been a thorn on the flesh of the President but can’t be prosecuted over his comments because he enjoys parliamentary immunity for utterances made on the floor of the senate. He is however vulnerable because he stood surety for Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra who has gone missing after the Army raided his father’s compound. It is likely that he was arrested for failing to produce Kanu in court as required by the bail bond he signed.
When recently, the South East Senate Caucus expressed shock over reported cut in the 2018 budget allocation for the Enugu Airport Terminal, Abaribe was the outspoken voice.
Abaribe who is the Chairman of lawmakers from the region said they learnt that an allocation of N2 billion sustained by the two aviation committees of the Senate and House of Representatives, were said to have been slashed to N500 million.
He said that the caucus had summoned an emergency meeting of South East lawmakers to unravel when the cut was effected and by who.
He had added that “no right thinking Igbo man would support any cut on allocation for projects in the South East region.”
Abaribe, who said that the budget documents were verifiable, noted that “we are committed and determined to find out who made the cut.”
He said that the caucus actually lobbied for the Enugu Airport Terminal allocation to be increased
to N3.5 billion until the Ministry of Aviation told members of the caucus that what they had was an envelope which could not be increased beyond the N2 billion allocation.
Abaribe, who is also the Chairman, Senate Committee on Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy, noted for instance that N30 billion was smuggled into the power budget without his committee’s knowledge.
He said that the N30 billion was listed for expansion and re-enforcement of infrastructure in the distribution companies to reduce stranded firms.
He added that “the amount never passed through the Senate Power committee.
“Where did such huge sum of N30 billion come from.
“Let the budget office and other relevant bodies conduct self examination. Such self examination will go a long way to clear gray areas.”
He explained that “in the case of the Enugu Airport Terminal and the Second Niger Bridge, we want to find out at what point the cut was made.”
Abaribe was arrested at a barber’s shop on Thursday by DSS and his wife confirmed his arrest.
