The Senate will reconvene on
Tuesday.
Channels Television reported
Saturday evening that the National Assembly would reconvene to discuss the
suspension of Justice Walter Onnoghen as the Chief Justice of Nigeria.
A source was reported as
confirming that the National Assembly would hold a leadership meeting on Sunday
over the matter where a stand against the decision of President Muhammadu
Buhari will be taken.
The lawmakers had during
Thursday’s plenary adjourned sitting until February 19, after the Presidential
and National Assembly elections.
But the decision to reconvene
next week followed the suspension of Justice Onnoghen by President Muhammadu
Buhari on Friday.
The President had thereafter
appointed and sworn in Justice Tanko Muhammed as acting CJN.
Meanwhile, the federal government
has reacted to the public outcry against the suspension of Onnoghen.
Many Nigerians, as well as the
United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom have condemned the
development.
The Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has now faulted the criticisms in an in interview
with newsmen on Saturday in Ilorin.
The minister said the critics
ignored the real issues which concern corruption and the need to protect the
judiciary.
He said: “Anybody who read the
address of the president yesterday will know that he laid out the point and
reasons for the action.
“The first is that there are
additional evidence revealing that the suspended CJN refused to declare
millions of dollars in his possession
“More worrisome is the fact that
when the suspended CJN was confronted with the petition that he failed to
declare his asset, he admitted adducing the reason that he forgot.
“The people that are crying
tyranny and dictatorship should ask where the suspended CJN amass several
millions of dollars which he failed to declare.
“We are talking about fighting
corruption here. Are those people who are crying wolf saying we should condone
corruption?’’
Mohammed said the critics were
being “hypocritical and insincere” to say that it was right for a CJN to be in
possession of millions of dollars unaccounted for and not declared as required
by law.
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com