By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
The House of Representatives yesterday said it is investigating the alleged sexual misconduct of three of its members, while attending an international leadership training programme alongside seven other of their colleagues in the United States of America.
The 10 lawmakers were invited by the US government for the International Visitor Leadership Programme, held between April 7 and 13, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio.
The US’ Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. James Entwistle in a letter informing Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara of his country’s concern on the development, dated June 9, 2016 explained that three members of the House namely:
Hon. Mohammed Garba Gololo (Bauchi), Hon. Samuel Ikon (Akwa Ibom) and Hon. Mark Gbillah ( Benue) had, on a recent visit to the United States for the International Visitor Leadership programme acted wrongly by soliciting for sex from prostitutes, and grabbing a hotel housekeeper in a bid to rape her.
Entwhistle in the letter stated in part; “We received troubling allegations regarding the behaviour of three members of the delegation to the U.S. Government’s flagship professional exchange programme.
“The U.S. Department of State and the Cleveland Council on World Affairs received reports from employees of the Cleveland hotel where the representatives stayed, alleging the representatives engaged in the following behaviour: “Mohammed Garba Gololo allegedly grabbed a housekeeper in his hotel room and solicited her for sex. While the housekeeper reported this to her management, this incident could have involved local law enforcement and resulted in legal consequences for Representative Galolo.
“Mark Terseer Gbillah and Samuel Ikon allegedly requested hotel parking attendants assist them to solicit prostitutes.”
Addressing newsmen yesterday however, spokesman of the House, Hon. Abdulrazak Namdas who described the reported incident as yet an allegation said “nobody has been convicted, none of them is before a court of law. Once an allegation, it remains an allegation. We have to do our own investigation”.
Confirming receipt of the letter from the US Ambassador, Namdas said “we have the letter in our possession. We have our own laws, we have our rules so we are doing our own investigation. When the investigation is completed, we will make it public”, even as he declined comment on the modality of the investigation.
However, Gbillah, said the allegation was a calculated attempt at rubbishing the National Assembly and vowed to demand compensation from the U.S. for defamation of character.
He explained that that they did not speak to park attendants, basing his argument on the ground that they did not go with cars, and asking, “So how could we have spoken with attendant.”
“So, at Cleveland Renaissance where we were, opposite the Quicken Loan Arena, the Cleveland Cavalier Basketball team played a match and many people came to lodge at the same hotel, and they claimed that we spoke with car park attendants. We didn’t go with cars, so how could we have spoken with attendants?”
“I saw the Ambassador (Entwistle) and went to greet him and he told me how a few of us tarnished the image of the House. I advised him to make it formal so that we can know who was involved and what actually happened.