Veteran journalist and former chairman/Editor-in-Chief of Daily Times newspaper, Chief Tola Adeniyi, has stated that the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, should be in prison and not leading the upper legislative chamber.
Adeniyi stated this while speaking on ‘State Affairs’, a podcast show hosted by broadcast journalist Edmund Obilo while commenting on alleged multi-billion Naira fraud case and the alleged sexual harassment dispute between Senator Akpabio and the Senator representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
“It’s not funny at all. The dilemma is still part of the madness that we’re going through in this country. How could someone like Akpabio be leader of the Senate? The Senate, even in the Roman times, Senate is the highest respected political class.
“Akpabio should be in prison. In a decent society, Akpabio should be in prison, and many people like him should be in prison. Go and read what the EFCC said about him and they never closed the case, they just silenced the EFCC. When someone stole N44billion, N90billion, something billion, all charges against one man and the charges have not been vacated.
“And you see him going around with these siren-blowing people and he goes about shamelessly. He should be in prison. People like him should be in prison, he has no business being in government, he has no business being in charge of a country called Nigeria. He’s Number 3 citizen for God’s sake.
“It makes you sad as a Nigerian as someone who has lived in this country for years, as someone who has lived decades in this country. And a person like Akpabio as the president of the Senate.”
On the performance of the former Akwa Ibom State governor as Senate President, Adeniyi said, “He has just being clowning; I can’t point at whatsoever he has done or what the Senate itself has done. I can’t point out at anything that they’ve done.”
The veteran journalist further described the Senate President as a man that is already on the ground. “Ordinarily, he’s a plebeian, he’s a nobody. People like him are people living on the mat, but the Nigerian situation is all about hypocrisy, the servitude – all these people saying ‘ranka ya dade’ to him making him feel he’s on top of anywhere and making Nigerians feel that he’s on top of anywhere.”
The former Daily Times boss, speaking on the allegation of sexual harassment levelled against Senator Akpabio by the Kogi Central Senator, said Nigeria ‘is a joke’.
“When you say you’re a Senate President and you’re accused of sexual harassment, you don’t sit in judgement in a case that involves you. Nigeria is a joke.
“Natasha has the right to accuse somebody if she has grounds to accuse and they should have listened to her instead of shutting her down and do the needful. Ask people to interrogate and investigate and if they find her to be frivolous, punish her and if they find the other man culpable, punish him. But things don’t work like that in Nigeria because it’s not a normal country; it’s a very abnormal country. Sick,” Adeniyi stated.
