Our attention has been drawn to diverse media reports claiming that President of the Senate, His Excellency Godswill Akpabio, GCON and Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, CON clashed during an executive session convened to deliberate whether the Senate should proceed on annual recess.
The reports do not contain any iota of truth. In entirety, they misconstrue our time-tested practices and traditions in the parliament worldwide, where members, regardless of their political leanings, leverage the instruments of parliamentary debates, questions or interpellations to discuss every initiative before approval or authorisation.
The Senate, as our country’s highest law-making institution, is not different in any way. Like other parliaments, every bill, motion and proposal is always subjected to intense scrutiny in our Chamber almost on a daily basis. This entails robust debates to which members discuss and dissect every initiative before the Senate purely in the interest of over 230 million Nigerians.
Whether in the chamber or committee room, debates on policy issues should not be misconstrued as altercations among members, neither do they suggest any crack in the rank of the leadership.
Senator Yemi Adaramodu,
Chairman,
Senate Committee on Media and Publicity,
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
27th July 2025.
