Akpabio disassociates himself from senate’s attempt to probe EFCC’s chairman

By Nse Peter

Senators from Peoples’ Democratic Party have surprisingly rejected the plans by the senate to probe the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, Ibrahim Lamorde, The Punch newspaper has reported.

The paper reports that the position of the PDP senators is contained in a statement signed by the Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio and other three other officers of the senate.

According to the news report, the reason given by Akpabio and his co-PDP senators is that it wasn’t the appropriate time to probe the anti-corruption agency, “particularly since the same action was mooted and had failed at previous plenary session”.

The PDP senators “urge the committee (on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions) to suspend its public hearing on this particular matter until further notice”.

Think Akwa Ibom! learned that Akpabio over the weekend summoned an emergency meeting of some key officers of PDP within the senate, where he informed them that the planned probe of EFCC may appear as if the senate was spoiling for war against President Muhammadu Buhari which could attract unpleasant consequences to some PDP senators. He persuaded the senators to join him in kicking against the planned probe.

Akpabio’s latest moves in the senate, political analysts say, is aimed at self-preservation. The former Akwa Ibom governor has been on the spotlight since he became a member of the current senate, after a report published in a national daily alleged that he bankrolled Senator  Bukola Saraki’s ‘coup’ against Buhari and APC during the battle for the position of senate president.

Akpabio also recently accused Buhari of using the Department of State Security to selectively target INEC commissioners in PDP-controlled states of Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Abia so as to pave the way for APC to take over those states.