The Senate on Tuesday resolved to probe the assassination attempt on the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, by armed bandits in the early hours of the day.
It has therefore mandated its Committee on Police headed by Senator Abu Ibrahim (Katsina South) to investigate the heinous act and report to the Senate in the shortest possible time.
This is sequel to a Point of Order (Order 43) raised by Ekweremadu at the resumption of Senate plenary that there was assassination attempt on him and his wife and son.
According to him, “it is with gratitude to Almighty God that I will like to tell my colleagues, my constituents and the general public that myself, my wife and my son narrowly escaped assassination in the early hours of this morning.
“It was about 4am this morning, that some people evaded the security in my house and got all the way to my room where I was sleeping with my wife – there was a struggle, there was a fight with heavy commotion and by the grace of God we eventually caught one of them while the rest escaped”.
Ekweremadu expressed concern that several hours after the assassination attempt was reported to top hierarchy of the police, there was no response until some hours after.
Said he: “The annoying aspect of it or the one that is worrisome is that at that point I called the Inspector-General of police (IGP), his phone was off, I called some of his aides, their phones rang out and nobody replied till now, I called DIG operations, till I left my house nobody showed up.
“I now had my people invite the DPO in charge of Apo police station. We didn’t see him till about 5:30,am he sent his 2nd-in-command who came and he saw the dangerous weapons that they left behind, he left and said that the DPO was coming, until I left my house by 9am, the DPO had not come.”
Ekweremadu emphasized on the level of insecurity in the country saying “nobody is safe in this country, I want to appeal to my colleagues and the general public that we all continue to be prayerful, be conscious of our private security, it appears that the security is not in the hands of government but the Almighty God”.
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, described the incident as unfortunate especially the late response of the police.
His words: “What is more disturbing Is the poor response of the police. I hope the police is not being partisan with the way they treat cases. I hope Mr chairman of the Police Committee and the members find out what really happened”.