SENATE/PRESIDENCY FACE-OFF: Anyim, minister shun Senate committee’s summon

The face-off between the Senate and the Presidency may have taken a turn for worse as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and the Minister of Environment, Hadiza Mailafia, on Thursday, shunned, as invitation to them by a committee of the legislative body.
The Senate had, on Wednesday, given an ultimatum to President Goodluck Jonathan to either sack chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Alhaji AbdulRasheed Maina, over an allegation of misappropriation of about N195 billion pension funds or risk face their wrath.
 The Senate Special Duties Committee, led by Senator Clever Ikisikpo, had invited Anyim, Mailafia and the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Environment to an interactive session, but the trio were conspicuously absent.
The Senate committee frowned at what it described as the “blatant disregard for the Senate” over the inability of Anyim and the other two its invitation.
Ikisikpo and another member of the committee, Senator Jummai Al-Hassan, expressed dismay that the duo had “lack of regard for the Senate, even after this meeting has been fixed earlier before now.