<\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s plenary presided by the Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau snowballed into anger and shouting match as the controversial Tax Reform Bills surfaced for debate despite not being captured on the Order Paper.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trouble started when the Senate Leader, Michael Bamidele Opeyemi invoked Order 12(1) suspending the Senate Rules to allow the Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue and other Tax experts to give clarification on Tax Reform Bill.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Senate Leader\u2019s submission was corroborated by Senator Jibrin Barau and approved that the august visitors be allowed into the Chamber by the Sergeant-At-Arms.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This immediately stoke Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume\u2019s anger when he drew the attention of the Chamber to the relevant provision in Senate Rules, arguing that visitors are forbidden to speak to the Chamber if their subject matter was not captured on the Order Paper for legislative debate.<\/p>\n
Ndume insisted that the matter was too important to be manipulated and the Senate should not in any way play around the Tax Reform Bill as Nigerians have spoken.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThis is a very important matter. We should not in any way try to use the position of the Senate because the Order Paper is clear. I have no problem having them to come to explain whatsoever but we must follow known procedures.<\/p>\n
That is if today that has to be taken, then there must a supplementary Order Paper that will reflect this. It is not a matter that you will just come and tell us after we are doing business of the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr President, you can have your way, but I will have my say. You can use your gavel and I will use my voice. Tax Reform Bill is very sensitive, our people have been dominated by this matter When you say, it is a matter of urgent national importance, yes, but even those matters normally referred to another legislative day if there are so inconvenient.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease I beg you in the name of God This matter if very important to not only us, but Nigerians that we represent and we swear by Bible and Holy Quran that we will represent the interest of the people. Nigerians have spoken, the Governors, the National Economic Council.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Reacting, Jibrhin Barau insisted that whatever the Senate was doing was within its rules, adding that the \u201cChamber has no time for rhetorics.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cyou have made your point Now we are not here for rhetoric. We are here for facts \u201c At this point the Chamber went rowdy while the Deputy Senate President tried to restore order.<\/p>\n
Ndume was eventually ruled out of order and the visitors were allowed into the hallowed Chamber to speak on the proposed Tax Reform Bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wednesday\u2019s plenary presided by the Deputy Senate President, Jibrin Barau snowballed into anger and shouting match as the controversial Tax Reform Bills surfaced for debate despite not being captured on the Order Paper. Trouble started when the Senate Leader, Michael Bamidele Opeyemi invoked Order 12(1) suspending the Senate Rules to allow the Chairman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[122,537,585,586,257],"class_list":["post-985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-news","tag-bill","tag-reform","tag-senate-in-rowdy","tag-session","tag-tax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=985"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/985\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}