Former Minister of Youths and Sports Development, Solomon Dalung, has made a disturbing prognosis.
Dalung was a minister while former president Muhammadu Buhari held sway.
He now said that the way the 10th National Assembly under Senate President Godswill Akpabio’s leadership is going, it would at a point, appoint President Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s life-president.
The ex-minister voiced this prediction in an interview he granted The Sun where he described the current national assembly membership as a band of President Tinubu’s chorister.
His words: “The 10th Assembly is a band of choristers for the president. Anytime they see the president in the Assembly, they become so excited like grandchildren who have seen their grandparents coming. They will burst into songs. The last one they sang, I had a problem with my ears. What I heard them singing, even though people told me that was different from what they heard, was ‘On your dollar we shall stand. On your dollar we shall stand. On your dollar, Tinubu, on your dollar, Tinubu, on your dollar, we shall stand.’ And all of them were singing and dancing, but people said they heard a different song.
“So, I didn’t hear the one they heard, but this is the one I heard. So, the National Assembly is not a rubber stamp. It comprises a band of ‘Emi Lokan’ choristers, who at every turn of event, will sing.
“I’m afraid that this 10th Assembly may wake up one day and with a voice vote, amend the constitution and appoint Tinubu as life president of Nigeria. I am afraid because the Senate President Godwill Akpabio will just come one day and say, ‘We have a proposal for the amendment of the constitution. We have received a report and the constitution has appointed Tinubu as the life president of Nigeria; those in favour say aye.’ And before anybody could say anything, he would hit the gavel and say the ayes have it.
“That is the type of the National Assembly that we have. So, it is not a rubber stamp because a rubber stamp assembly must have something on the ground to stamp on. This one doesn’t need anything. Even if it’s just a mere dream, even Tinubu sharing it on phone and the Senate president hears about it, the National Assembly will sit and you will hear that the ‘ayes’ have it. So, it’s not a rubber stamp. If they were a rubber stamp, we would have expected that they would have something credible to stamp on. They are just a band of ‘Emi lokan’ choristers.”
