Alleged misunderstanding between Senate,National Assembly clerk deepens

The leadership of the Senate is allegedly preparing a no confidence vote on the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mohammed Ataba Sani Omolori, The Guardian learnt yesterday.The decision followed the alleged crisis of mutual distrust between the leadership of the red chamber and the clerk since the emergence of Lawan as Senate president.

The feud reportedly came to a climax at a meeting last week in the office of the Senate president during which both parties were said to have sharply disagreed on issues relating to the alleged illegal recruitments into the Assembly, elongation of tenure of Omolori as Clerk, allegation of contract award abuses as well as touted non-payment of salaries and allowances of legislative aides.

When contacted for comments, the National Assembly’s Director of Information, Rawlings Agada, said “there are conflict resolution mechanisms to resolve such issues whenever they existed.”He, however, denied knowledge of the shouting match at the meeting or any other unpleasant exchange.

His words: “I have spoken with the Clerk on the issue. What I can tell you is that, during that meeting, the issue that was discussed was the severance package for aides of lawmakers. I am not aware of any other issue discussed at the meeting.

“Today (yesterday), the Clerk and the Minister of Finance had a meeting and that issue has been resolved now. That’s what I can tell you. Besides, if something like that happened, there are always internal mechanisms in place through which they can be resolved.”Sources hinted that the meeting, which ended as one of the stormiest in the history of the National Assembly, was called by Lawan.

Omolori, who was invited to brief the Senate president on why some recruitment were allegedly made without passing such through the National Assembly Service Commission, was reported to have insisted that his hands were very clean regarding the exercise.But an enraged Lawan reportedly shouted at the Clerk, threatening to get him out of office. In return, Omolori was said to have dismissed Lawan’s threat, insisting that all he had done were in compliance with extant laws.