Groups differ over Saraki’s rejection of National Assembly’s Ag Clerk

• Agoro accuses Senate President of turning courts into theatres
Different reactions continue to trail Senate President Bukola Saraki’s call on the National Assembly Service Commission (NASC) to rescind its decision on the appointment of Mohammed Sani-Omolori as the Acting Clerk of the upper chamber.

Two groups, Youth for Peace Nigeria and Concerned Southerners Forum yesterday asked the Chairman of the National Assembly Service Commission, Dr. Adamu Fika, to ‎correct what they described as administrative errors in the appointment of Clerk to the National Assembly or step aside.

Chief Moses Erebi, who spoke on behalf of the two groups alleged, that in 2014, Fika approved the appointment of Mohammed Sani-Omolori as Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly without consulting other commissioners as required by the Act establishing the commission.

However, taking a different position, a non-governmental organization (NGO) Perfect House of Friends (PHF) described Dr. Saraki’s directive as a usurpation of the constitutional powers of the Commission by the Senate.

PHF President Alhaji Abubakar Mohammed said the directive was a violation of Section 8 of the Act that set up the Commission, which confers on it, the power to make appointments, disciplinary control over persons without being subjected to the direction or control of any authority or persons.

Meanwhile, presidential candidate of the National Action Council (NAC), Dr. Olapade Agoro yesterday accused Senate President Bukola Saraki of turning his ongoing trial by the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) into a “theatre of the absurd, allegedly harassing judges and the temple of justice with numerous applications.

Dr. Agoro said in a statement in Ibadan that in the annals of socio-political and historical development of Nigeria, no one on record would be found and or could be said to have brazenly held a “sharp-edged knife to the jugular of the nation’s judicial system like Saraki.”
“Incidentally President Muhammadu Buhari now Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces also went through harrowing and painful experience of court trials in the attempt to claim his mandate but without ever contemplating holding the judiciary by the jugular,” Agoro said.

Apparently taking a cue from the CCT trial, Chairman, Senate Committee on Air force, Senator Duro Faseyi, has threatened that the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) will take control of the upper legislative chamber if Dr. Saraki is removed as Senate President.