President Jonathan
The House of Representatives on Thursday responded to critics of its invitation to President Goodluck Jonathan over the spate of bombings in the country.
The lawmakers said they have the constitutional backing to do so.
The Representatives also reminded Mr. Femi Otedola that he is as guilty being a bribe giver as Farouk Lawan who collected it.
The reaction of the lawmakers was coming on the heels of Otedola's reaction to the reinstatement of his companies on the list of those that collected foreign exchange but failed to use it for importing fuel.
Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Zakari Mohammed at a media interactive session on Thursday emphasized that the House has not erred by inviting the President for an interface on the security situation in the country.
he said: " There is no exception, the House makes an application on issues bordering on what has been of national concern and in this instance, the President and Commander-in-Chief who happens to be the father of the nation, we think he is the best person to throw light on efforts taken so far.
"Of course we are saddened by the occurring violence in the country, the bombings and criminal activities but we believe that as a nation and representatives of the people, if we don't take a position on the matter things will go on unabated.
"With the way this violence has been spreading, we believe that we need to get proactive and the best way to do it is to get Mr. President and his Service Chiefs to interface with us and be able to know what exactly the constraints are and what are the their efforts.
Saying that the Representatives were not unaware of the debate the invitation has generated, Mohammed noted that some critics believed that the House overstepped its bounds with the invitation.
He said: "I want to say clearly here that we have not, in anyway overstepped our bounds. We said it in our legislative agenda that we intend to interface with other arms of government to the benefit of Nigerians and this is just one of it.
"Remember, Mr. President at the wake of subsidy introduction had to invite us to the Villa, we had light lunch with him, 360 of us, including 109 Senators, we were in the Villa, nobody complained, we listened to him and told him our own piece of mind as far as the subsidy issue is concerned.”
Source: The Nation Newspaper
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