Senate tackles Waku over corruption allegation

The Senate Committee on Rules and Business has asked Senator Joseph Waku to retract his statement wherein he allegedly cast aspersion and insinuations of corrupt practices against its members.

Chairman of the committee, Senator Ita Enang, in a statement in Abuja, said Waku who served from 1999 to 2003, allegedly claimed that he was informed by a serving Senator that “to sponsor a Bill, a Senator may have to compromise the Rules and Business Committee to get it listed.” Enang said, “For the avoidance of doubt, we are hereby calling on Senator Waku to please name such a serving Senator.” He said Waku, who left the Senate 12 years ago could not have been in a position to make any statement about the institution without being appropriately informed. He said, “We therefore demand that he retracts the statement and name the Senator. “We can boldly state that no serving Senator would hold such opinion or say same to any person concerning the rules and Business Committee. “We state that the committee under my leadership as chairman, and the Senate leadership under distinguished Sen. David Mark as Senate President has and will always maintain the highest standard of decency and fairness to all Senators. “We believe in the equality of all Senators and none will breach the privilege of the other as has been demonstrated in the Mark's leadership thus far.” Meanwhile, the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has alleged that a current edition of a news magazine had published a malicious publication against him in order to attack his 2015 ambition. Ekweremadu, in a statement by his Special Adviser, Media, Mr. Uche Anichukwu, therefore asked members of the public to ignore the publication because it was meant to discredit his performances. He said, “We are not surprised that after months of fruitless search, the peddlers of the pre-packaged fallacies and libel only ended up with an obscure and financially distressed medium, as every professionally inclined and credible medium turned down both their cocktail of lies and mouth-watering offers. “We make bold to say that it is all about 2015 and we know where it is coming from. “While more of such attacks are expected as we count down to the electoral processes, we wish to state that the said report and every other subsequent attempts to discredit the person of the Deputy President of the Senate or the numerous and laudable development projects he attracted to his constituency and Enugu State in general will continue to fail. “This is so because while you may deceive the blind that there is no oil in the soup, you cannot deceive him as to whether or not there is salt in it. “The legacies of the Deputy President of the Senate's representation in terms of socio-economic infrastructural development, human capital development, job creation, and political empowerment are as clear as daylight. “We therefore urge our teeming supporters and admirers to treat such attacks and malicious publications as mere antics of political desperados.”What will be will be” the statement added.