Dons Eze
I DIDN’T EXCHANGE BLOWS WITH AKPABIO – SENATE LEADER, OPEYEMI
The Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has rubbished claims that he was engaged in a brawl with the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.
Jackson Ude had claimed on his X handle that Senator Bamidele allegedly fought Akpabio at the Senate cafeteria, accusing him of marginalizing lawmakers from the South by assigning lucrative committee positions to his associates in the North.
But in a swift reaction in a statement by his Media team, Senator Bamidele dismissed the claims as untrue and unfounded.
While describing Ude as a known serial blackmailer and a “cash-and-carry” journalist, the lawmaker said that there was no physical fight between himself and Senator Akpabio on Wednesday.
The statement read: “For the record, it is a verifiable fact that Senator Bamidele has never been involved in physical assault in over two decades of his political trajectory, not even when he was a young man leading the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) as President.
“It is surprising that the purveyor of this misleading information in his selfish agenda and unprofessional conduct threw ethos of Journalism into waste bin and decided to feast on roadside gists to tarnish the image of the Senate Leader.
“We are aware that the fake news is meant to cause disaffection within the Senate and by extension; heating up the political system.
“To think that the Senate Leader, President of the Senate and other principal officers of the Senate together received the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. YU Dunhai and his delegation few minutes after leaving the plenary on Wednesday is a significant testimony against Ude’s imagination.
“Further to this, photographs of the Chinese envoys with the leadership of the Senate were widely published in today’s major national newspapers. It is equally verifiable that the Senate Leader and the Senate President both drove out of the National Assembly premises in the same vehicle yesterday.
“This time again, the Senate Leader is sounding a note of warning to all attention seekers in the ilk of Ude to be careful and not take the Leader’s gentlemanliness for granted.
“Henceforth, the Leader will be forced to use the instrumentality of the law to protect himself and his office as enshrined in the CyberCrime Act 2015. We, therefore, urge the public to disregard this misinformation and treat it with the disrespect it deserves.
“Nigeria’s disruptive fifth columnists have been failing. This is another remarkable failure. The 10th Senate is a uniquely united assembly of noble and patriotic Nigerians, hence no subterfuge can alter the bond.”
