Nigeria’s Senate was thrown into chaos during the plenary on Wednesday as the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, shunned the former minority leader, Godswill Akpabio, when he wanted to contribute to a point of order raised by Senator Bassey Akpan.
Saraki said he ignored Akpabio’s because he was not sitting in the appropriate seat.
While Saraki dumped the ruling All Progressives Congress to the opposition People’s Democratic Party late July, Akpabio moved the other way in August and also resigned his position as the minority leader of the red chamber.
“Senator… eh… former Minority Leader, you know you can’t speak from there. You can’t. Go to your seat, when you get to your seat, I’ll recognise you,” Saraki said.
The Senate president, thereafter, asked the leader of the Senate to proceed with other items on the Order Paper, which was countered by the Senate leader, Ahmed Lawan, stood up to defend Akpabio.
“If he decides to sit there, let him. There is no microphone there. Let us not take the panadol for his headache. Let me advise, that even though we have only six, seven months to go, let’s do what is right,” he said.
Consequently, this led to a chaos as some senators were seen rising from their seats to confront senators from the opposition parties.