From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Senate President, Ahmad Lawan has debunked and described as funny and serious reports that he and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, allegedly collected bribe of $10 million for members of the National Assembly to pass the controversial Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Lawan, who briefed State House Correspondents on the outcome of his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, said while Nigeria’s constitution guarantees freedom of expression, and Nigerians have the right to hold the leaders to account, it was not a license to impugned on their character with unverifiable allegations.
He said: “But of course, bigger legacies will be that the orientation of Nigerians is such that they are free to say whatever they want to say about their government, about their leaders, and so on and so forth. And that we have really established ourselves as an administration, where people can say anything or everything about the President about the administration about members of National Assembly, they call us names. And this is part of the intangible dividends of democracy.
“But we are determined to ensure that the space is wide open for everybody to say whatever he wants to say. But I will advise that don’t say things that are bad because people are in the habit…and recently somebody said $10 million was given to the Speaker and the Senate president to give to members of the National Assembly to pass 3% development fund that is funny, but also very serious.
“I really want to take this opportunity to take exceptions to those kinds of unwarranted unprovable false and fake information being fed to the Nigerian public.”