The Senate may have hit a brick wall in its efforts to get President Muhammadu Buhari to discipline the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, over his snubbing the Upper Legislative Chamber, and allegedly planning to implicate Senate President Bukola Saraki in a Police investigation.
A source privy to the meeting said the President told the lawmakers that the nation’s Police chief be allowed to see to the end of his investigations.
He added that the IGP is under oath just like all other public office holders.
Saraki had last week raised an alarm that some suspects in Ilorin, Kwara State, were moved to Abuja in plans to implicate him and the Kwara State Government.
But leader of the Senate delegation, Senator Ahmed Lawan parried journalists’ questions at the State House. He said the closed-door meeting went beyond Idris in its discussions.
Another member of the delegation was more forthcoming. Senator Abdulahi Adamu told journalists: “The Senate President made some comments to the effect that he received a call from his governor, Abdulfatah, that some persons, suspected to be cultists who are undergoing investigation in Ilorin, Kwara state will be transferred to Abuja and it is becoming a problem, that is why the governor intimated him. That is why it was decided that we should come, as leaders in the Assembly, to hear what is going on and if anything can be done about it.”
Prodded to explain why the Police cannot be left to perform its functions, Adamu observed that it could hinder lawmakers from from hearing from the President.
“That cannot stop us from coming to see the President on the matter and to hear from him if you really know what has been happening at the Assembly. If there is a harmonious working relationship between the Executive and Legislature, and even the Judiciary, all these types of things will not come up, and even if they do come, not in the way they are coming up now.
“A small matter is often overblown and it becomes a problem for everybody. This is the result of some unnecessary utterances because things are not going as expected.
“So long as suspicion and accusations continue to exist within the minds of some people who ordinarily shouldn’t have them, these things will continue.
“A senior police officer in Kwara had stated that the name of the Senate President was not mentioned and if that is the case, there is no need for all these emissaries, but since we have decided that a team should come, we have come to hear from the President and he listened to us.”
Last Wednesday the Senate set up the nine-member committee to meet President Buhari.
Other members of the committee appointed to meet Mr Buhari Chief Whip Olusola Adeyeye; Minority Leader Godswill Akpabio; Danjuma Goje; Sam Anyanwu; Aliyu Wammako; Abdulahi Adamu; Fatima Raji-Rasaki; and Oluremi Tinubu.