By Niyi Babade.
The Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele has faulted claims that he is working against the interests of the Yoruba in the National Assembly.
Opeyemi said the claims “are baseless, false and unfounded,” noting that he had been dutifully serving the interests of Ekiti Central, Ekiti State, South-west and Nigeria by extension since his election into the National Assembly.
The Senate leader while speaking with our correspondent, quoted Machiavelli book the “Prince” when he said:
“Therefore one who becames a Prince through the Favour of the people ought to keep them friendly” The People of Ekiti Central in the South West gave me the mandate to represent them in the Senate, how can I then work against such a people,” he reiterated.
“I was part of the committee which championed and got the bill of the South West Development Commission passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives in Abuja, how could I now be against the south west,” he said
“I thereby challenge any person with audio-visual and documentary evidence to come out and present such.”
Some media platforms had falsely attributed a statement to the senate leader that:
“If we allow the regional system in Nigeria, we would have automatically given the easterners Biafra.”
Faulting the statement Bamidele said he never made such a statement, which he said, was an attempt to pitch him against the Yoruba and other ethnic nationalities in the federation.
He added that he did not make any statement about the regional government in line with the 1960 and 1963 Constitution at the 27th-28th September 2024 Senate Retreat on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.
“The claim is far from the truth. I never spoke about the return to the regional government at any forum; neither did I make a claim that ‘If we allow the regional system in Nigeria, we would have automatically given the easterners Biafra.’”
“It is a sheer case of misinformation and deliberate fake news, which do not in any way represent my worldview about federal governance structure,” Bamidele said.
Bamidele, however, warned that he would not hesitate to legally challenge any individual or establishment fabricating and circulating fake news against his person and office.
Currently, there is no proposal for the return to the regional government before the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.
He further said: “How then can I oppose the proposal that is not currently before the Constitution Review Committee? I believe this statement is politically motivated to discredit me before Nigeria as a whole.”
“We are with our leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, we have deployed our arsenal and already investigating the matter in our own way and we are ready to bring to justices and public ridicule anyone, groups or establishments found to be behind this defamatory act”, Mr. Akintunde Emmanuel of the committee for Truth and Equality has said.