By Aideloje Ojo
Suspended member of the Niger state House of Assembly representing Kontagora 1 constituency, Muhammad Nuradeen Umar, has apologised before the House Committee on Ethics, Public Petitions and Privileges investigating the allegations he made against the House in an interview he granted Blueprint last month.
In the said interview, he alleged that he sponsored four bills, one of them with the speaker, while nine others were in the pipeline.
He also said the lawmakers were bribed to effect changes in the leadership of the House sometime in May, 2012.
Declaring the session open, the chairman of the committee, Muhammad Abdullahi Nazeer, said the committee was mandated to authenticate the veracity or otherwise of the allegations as contained in the newspaper publication.
Umar, however, apologised to the Assembly, describing his statement as “a slip of tongue.”
He declared his respect for the House, adding that as a democrat who believed in the sanctity of the legislature, he regretted granting the interview.
The lawmaker informed the committee that he had sponsored only two motions at the plenary and not bills as claimed by the reporter that conducted the interview, saying that “the reporter must have been ignorant of the difference between a motion and a bill.
He said: “To err is human and to forgive is divine. I am assuring that as one of the principal officers in the House, I remain a loyal, committed and dedicated to the peaceful co-existence of the legislature and such mistake would not happen again.”
Umar presented an apology letter to the committee for onward submission to the House and another letter in which he requested his party, the All progressives Congress (APC) to withdraw the case it filed against the House on the suspension issue.
Blueprint Newspapers on WhatsAp-Join now!