Former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has pointed out the reasons why she and the representatives of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan were reluctant to swear an oath during their recent meeting with the Senate Ethics and Privileges Committee.
Speaking in an interview with Arise News Television on Saturday from 12:26, she revealed that Senator Natasha Akpoti’s petitioner raised two objections in the meeting, which he appealed to the committee to consider before discussing the petition.
Ezekwesili noted that the petitioner was dissatisfied with the panel of the committee, which he felt was biased and would not properly address the case of sexual harassment. Secondly, he raised an objection, emphasizing the need to have Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan present before the committee, since she was the main witness in the case.
She revealed that the panel of the ethics committee immediately refused to consider these objections raised by the petitioner, claiming they were there for a more serious matter. Due to these disagreements, Oby Ezekwesili explained that they were not inclined to swear an oath. When the matter was prolonged and no agreements were reached, she claimed to have accepted swearing the oath but was ignored by the panel of the committee.
Oby Ezekwesili: “The petitioner swore into the oath and then used that opportunity to start with his objections and they still said to him, No we don’t what to talk about any objections, you wrote this petition so please just go straight to it. The Counsel, Dr. Akiode protested that, they shut down her mic and said she could not talk, you are not supposed to talk here it is against our rules. I tried to talk, they shut the mic down, they said they did not want to hear from any of us that we refused to take the oath.
At that point, seeing what that petitioner was going through, I said let me swear into the oath, as I kept putting my hand for them to swear me into an oath, they ignored it. At that point in time, they just simply ignored it”.