Senator Ireti Kingibe has said that she didn’t append her signature to Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension by the Senate.
Recall that the Kogi Central lawmaker was suspended for six months by her colleagues for unparliamentary conducts.
Senator Adam Oshiomhole stirred up a hornets’ nest recently when he alleged that some senators had no hands in Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension.
Oshiomhole’s comment irred the Senate following which the former Labour leader denied statement attributed to him that some senators’ names that appeared on the report that recommended Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension were written without their consents.
Weighing in on the issue, Kingibe, who represents the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the Senate, said she was not present when the report was prepared in her absence and therefore she could not have approved its contents.
“I did tell everybody that I was not there. I wasn’t there. I was in the retreat with him. He came to meet me there, and when I heard about the report, I said, ‘But we were here,’ she recounted.
According to the senator, she attended the committee meeting briefly before leaving for a tax reform retreat, which she considered more important because of its direct impact on her constituents.
“We went—myself and three or four other senators that were on that committee—we went to the committee of petitions, public complaints and petitions, and we signed attendance. And I left to go to the tax reform retreat because that, I felt, was much more important,” she explained.
Kingibe acknowledged that a photocopy of her signature appeared on the report but maintained that she did not sign the document recommending Akpoti-Uduaghan’s suspension.
“I even complained to other senators, specifically Senator Barau; I complained to him very bitterly that I have not seen that report. I didn’t see it then; I have not seen it till now,” she said, before adding: “I couldn’t have endorsed the committee report; I didn’t see it.”
