Former senate president, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and chairman of the House of Representatives committee on federal capital territory (FCT), Hon. Herman Hembe engaged each other in a war of words as investigations into the controversial centenary city project got underway.
Trouble started when the former secretary to government of the federation (SGF), requested that Hon. Hembe withdraw himself from presiding over the probe for alleged "bias and personal interest" in the centenary project.
However, Hembe stood his grounds and insisted on presiding over the investigations.
Anyim, had in a prepared statement titled "point of order for your record" submitted that he was not properly served claiming that a committee clerk or even chairman of a committee of the House cannot sign a letter inviting him to testify before any panel of the House.
He also went memory lane accusing Hembe of improper conduct in the handling of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe during the Jonathan era.
He said "the former Managing Director of Security and Exchange Commission accused you of demanding bribe from her, you pushed for her sack and I refused to sack her as Secretary to Government of the Federation. I will not allow you to use the platform of this committee to victimize me"
But in his response, Hembe declared that "The former Senate President cannot assume the chairman of the committee. It's not fair"
Hembe continued" Let me just say that we are a house of free laws, we are a house of order. We are a house of due process. This is not an avenue.... Let me just say to the former President of the Senate and the former SGF that in my opening remarks, I tried to show you courtesy. Please, don't interrupt, as far as this hearing is concerned, I'm chairman here. I am chairman and I would not allow you to usurp that position.
"I have shown you respect. I even made a comment in the beginning that you ought not to appear by saying clearly that it was brought to my attention by certain quarters that we shouldn't have invited the former Senate President to a hearing like this out of share respect. Out of nothing else but share respect.
"There's no law that says that you can't do it. It's just respect for the fact that he's been Senate President and I took note of that and spoke to my colleague chairman in the Senate, Senator Dino Melaye last night. And I asked him to communicate with the former Senate President and ask if we will excuse him today. It doesn't mean that if we excuse him and later, we won't write to request for such information.
"What we are doing here bothers on his activities as Secretary to Government of the Federation. For Mr former Senate President to impute bias when he does not even know what we are doing here. We have not even said a word and he's already inputting bias. I will like to ask you....."
At this point, Anyim interrupted but Hembe warned him "Do not interrupt me, do not interrupt me, I reject that. Let me finish. Sit down, you cannot, let me finish.
"Hon. Members, let me say this to the former Senate President. Former Senate President and SGF, hold on. Like I said earlier, we will allow everybody the opportunity to speak here but I'm a little dismayed that for someone who was invited for this program and felt he ought not to be invited, has already delved into the subject matter.
"I would allow Senator Pius Anyim an opportunity to go ahead and finish his statement. When he finished, we will rule and there's no way he or anybody can attempt to disrupt this proceeding, this proceeding will conclude today. Nothing will change and so you can go ahead and make your statement and make any imputation you want to make, when you are done, we will continue, I so rule"
Anyim further continued his attacks on Hembe saying "thank you Mr Chairman, I think that's what I expected you to really do. I should be able to state my position then you rule.
"Mr Chairman, you have been threatening to conduct this public hearing for over a year now. In fact, you ended last year with it and this year, you started again with it. You scheduled it for 27th of January and you later moved it to 1st of February and again moved it to 3rd of February,
"Mr Chairman, we only discovered your game plan for all the postponements when you started sending messages to the Managing Director to come and see you privately. It was after all your efforts to get the Managing Director to come and see you privately failed that you confirmed this date. I want you to know that nobody will see you privately and we are here for the hearing and we will have the hearing.
"Mr Chairman, Honourable members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced that Mr Chairman has a deep-seated personal interest and bias in this matter and so, he's not in a position to guarantee fair hearing to myself, the Centenary City management and indeed to the entire subject matter. I have accordingly demand that Mr Chairman should disqualify himself and let the Vice Chairman take over a let us continue. So Mr chairman, you hand over to your Vice and excuse us to continue.
"And so, if you will be able to disqualify yourself, there's no reason anybody will submit himself to a system and an arrangement that does not guarantee fair hearing. So, we are here for the hearing, we are ready for the hearing but we should get fair hearing. Thank you Mr chairman"
Responding, Hembe denied inviting the managing director of Centenary City to. Private meeting. He said "thank you, this is a straight forward matter. Thank you very much Mr former Senate President. No, don't worry, we should not subject this matter to break, we are here for this hearing and we should just allow this matter to proceed. Mr former Senate President, Senator Pius Anyim, we invited you here for the public hearing.
"And like I said in one forum and I remember it categorically, that if I had sent messages, messages are beautiful things, they are basically on phones and they remain there. Such a person is free those kinds of documents forward and say this is how Hon. Hembey has contacted me or whatever.
"My bottom line is this, thank you for your contributions, we have excused you at the beginning of this programme, the excuse is still open and if you want to take the option of the excuse as a former presiding officer of the Senate, you are free.
"On the strength of that, my ruling here is that I'm going to preside over this public hearing and this public hearing will continue", Hembe ruled.
Similarly, a former minister of the FCT, Senator Bala Mohammed refused to testify at the investigative hearing choosing to adopt the presentation by Senator Anyim.
Despite all entreaties from the committee, Mohammed declined to subject himself to oath and any presentation insisting that he could only respond to questions.
Recall that the House had last year directed its committee on FCT to investigate the Centenary City Project to ascertain if it is being executed in line with extant laws and regulations.
This came following a motion sponsored by Hon. Golu Timothy (Plateau PDP), for alleged irregularities.
Golu had alleged that the project, located along the airport road, has cost the government billions of naira and loss of thousands of hectares of land.
“It was to showcase Abuja as a modern city. Government was not supposed to be part of it. People were meant to be compensated, there is restiveness as there has been no compensation given,” Golu said.
The Centenary City Project was embarked upon by the last administration in 2014 to mark 100 years of the amalgamation of Nigeria.
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