Southern Senators ‘attack’ Northern colleagues over 2014 confab report

South South Senators’ Forum, SSF, on Saturday berated their counterparts from the Northern part of the country over their position on the 2014 confab report.

SSF described the call by the Northern Senators’ Forum, NSF, that President Muhammadu Buhari should ignore the 2014 Confab report as a product of confusion and ignorance.

Recall that the Chairman of NSF, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, had last week said it was unfair for their Southern counterparts to ask the President to implement the report.

Speaking at a retreat of Northern senators in Katsina, Adamu had said Buhari should not implement the report because he was not part of it.

It also described the argument of the Northern Senators that since the President was not part of the Confab, he would not implement it, as laughable.

Reacting to the position of the North, SSF Chairman, Hope Uzodinma maintained that the report was drawn from papers submitted by eminent Nigerians.

In a statement he personally signed, Uzodinma said, ‘’Adamu’s (Chairman of Northern Senators Forum) action and utterance smack of a town Union President who out of zealotry to protect his union and who erroneously sees the President of the country as a member of his union embarks on an indecent haste to speak for the President all in the name of protecting his Town Union.

“The communiqué by Southern Senators Forum merely asked President Buhari to convene a meeting of governors and the leadership of the National and state assemblies to consider the report and forward to the National Assembly for debate.

“I wonder why Adamu should be in a hurry to defend a President who has not complained about the communiqué. Has Adamu forgotten that the President’s party and his party too, the APC, promised to restructure in their manifesto?

“Even Adamu admitted that the 2014 conference report treated restructuring extensively. What is wrong in asking the President whose party promised restructuring to consider sending a restructuring report to the National Assembly?

“Let me inform my colleague that Southern Senators met in Calabar on a well-planned retreat on how to deepen national unity through devolution of powers.

“It appears that in Adamu’s indecent haste to attack our retreat he ended up holding one that had only sectional interest, and not national interest as a theme, including how to extend the oversight functions of senators to the implementation of the 2018 budget in the Northern states.

“This inability to distinguish between the roles of the legislature from that of the executive is the height of confusion and ignorance’s and it is truly unfortunate.”

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