By Kemi Busari



The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has condemned the decision of the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to snub the senate’s invitation twice.

For the second time, Mr Idris on Wednesday failed to appear before the senate plenary despite a formal invitation.
He was invited to answer questions on the arrest of a senator, Dino Melaye, and killings across the country.

The police boss was first summoned on Wednesday, April 25, but he failed to appear.

“I don’t want us to labour too much. At the upper chamber, we must show maturity and statesmanship. I don’t think anybody who has been around enough to observe the practice of our democracy knows that this action cannot be right.

“Under constitutional powers, it requires the IG to come and give a report on the incident involving a colleague and the incessant killings happening in the country. He has felt that he cannot come and wants to delegate it to a junior to come,” he said.

He noted that no police IG has ever refused to appear before the senate since Nigeria started practising democracy.

The Senate President advised his colleagues to give the police boss one more week to reflect and make his appearance.

“No IG has ever refused to appear before the Senate since we started practicing democracy. I don’t think that has happened before. But we must know these actions are danger to our democracy.

“Again, we cannot say it is just to us because the President told us that he told him to go to Benue and the man refused to go to Benue and he is sitting there and he is doing this. I want to appeal to our colleagues, let us approach this in two ways.

“One way, we give him another period for him to reflect the enormity of his action because whatever happens today sets a precedence for future and as such it is important that we do not allow issues like this.

“The leader of the Senate and the Chairman on Police should engage with the executive and send our position. There are powers we can exercise which are not in the interest of us making progress in this country.

Since the beginning of the year, over 500 or 600 have been killed and we believe that the man in charge of enforcing this does not think he needs to sit down with Senate to engage with us when there is something wrong somewhere.

“So let us hold and give them time within a week and come back to us and I am sure that wisdom would prevail.”

He noted that no police IG has ever refused to appear before the senate since Nigeria started practising democracy.

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