Akpabio Refuses To Apologise To Goje In The Senate Over Comment

There was a mild drama on the floor of the
Senate yesterday when the Senate Minority
Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio refused to
apologise to his colleague, Danjuma Goje over
uncomplimentary comments and, what was
described as an attack on his integrity and
personality.
The drama started when the Senate Minority
Leader accused Senator Goje of not doing enough
in his state in the area of infrastructure when he
held sway as governor between 2003 and 2011.
Senator Akpabio who took his turn to contribute
to the 2016 budget, turned the heat on his
colleague when he described the 2016 budget as
"uncommon ", but went further to state that, "I
want to commend the President for raising capital
expenditure to 30 per cent, but for me it is
nothing new, it might be new to my Colleague
Goje because while as governor he did not place
premium on capital expenditure, but for me I was
doing between 80 to 83 per cent of my budgets on
capital projects and that is why there is massive
developments in Akwa Ibom under my
leadership.
"If you go to Akwa Ibom, you will see those
developments", he added.
Senator Akpabio also said the N400million
proposed for the Niger Delta Development
Commission, NNDC was grossly inadequate,
adding that the Federal Government presently
owes NDDC about N700Million.
But in a swift reaction, Senator Goje raised a
point of order, drawing attention of the Senate to
what he referred to as, "attack on his image and
reputation ", accusing the Senate Minority Leader
of deviating from the main issue of budget debate
and misrepresentation of his views.
Attempts by Goje for his colleague to either
withdraw his comments or apologise were in
vain.
While contributing to concluding lap of the budget
estimates debate yesterday, Senator Danjuma
Goje acknowledged the challenges facing Nigeria
due to the dwindling oil prices.
He expressed satisfactions that the present
administration is focusing Agriculture and Solid
minerals, adding that the 30 per cent budgetary
provisions for capital projects was in line with
Tue changed mantra.
He told his colleagues that previous
administrations were interested in siphoning
funds rather than channeling them into
development programmes.