Former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Kola Ologbondiyan, has advised Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, to step down during Tuesday plenary.
Naijaonpoint reports that Ologbondiyan said the accusation against the Senate President required that he steps down for thorough investigation to be carried out.
In a statement on Sunday, the PDP Chieftain noted that Akpabio’s presidency of the Senate may bring ridicule to the institution if lawmakers fail to take action.
According to him, if Senator Akpabio fails to step down from his position on Tuesday, senators should step him down.
He said: “When Senator David Alechenu Bonaventure Mark emerged as the President of the Senate in June 2007, one of his first assignments was to search for the ‘Banana Peels’ that had removed from office a number of Senate Presidents that preceded him.
“‘Banana Peels’ was the nebulous hubris that bordered on financial malfeasance which suddenly ended the tenure of a number of presiding officers from the chair.
“But the inimitable Senator Mark smartly pulled back from the issues of money in the Senate and constituted a committee that established financial protocols for the Senate and all senators.
“He (Mark) would later spend eight (8) uninterrupted and noiseless years as the presiding officer of the Senate and the Chairman of the National Assembly.
“Subsequent presiding officers of the Senate, namely Senators Bukola Saraki and Ahmed Lawan, also did terms of four years each and vacated the chair gracefully and peacefully without a fall from the proverbial ‘Banana Peels’.
“Interestingly, the current Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, has been toying with the ‘Banana Peels’ in his almost two years in office. Now, he has, through the current allegations of sexual harassment, fully introduced the ‘Banana Sleaze’ into the lexicon of the Senate and the consequences are always inevitable.
“The horrid stories churning out of the Senate are, to say the least, disgusting. It is, therefore, time for the men of valour, who are in the Senate, to rise and rescue the institution from a wholesale debasement.
“When Nigeria was a more civil and a more democratic clime, with the Senate as it ought to be, Akpabio would, at the next plenary sitting (presumably on Tuesday), rise to tell his colleagues that he would step aside to clear his image, which, intrinsically, is the image of the Senate.
“But if Akpabio failed to rise in defence of the Senate on Tuesday, it will be the duty of the lawmaking body, as an institution, in her own honour, to save the Senate from this messy allegation of “Sexual Harassment” by asking Akpabio to step aside.
“That is the only way to sanitize the Senate and restore public confidence in the National Assembly.”