Kingsley Odia, the assaulted National Assembly Staff who was reported to have slapped the Senate Deputy Minority Whip, Senator Biodun Olujimi, has finally spoken on the incident.
NASS Abuja
There was uproar at the Senate on Monday as
news went round that an angry staff of the National Assembly slapped Senator Biodun Olujimi, the Senate Deputy Minority Whip, from Ekiti State.
However, when the dust over the issue settled, it was made glaring that rather than the senator getting slapped, it was actually her aides who beat up the Assembly staff who is a member of the executive of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) for “disrespecting the senator”.
According to eyewitnesses, the PASAN exco member, Kingley Odia, made an attempt at entering the elevator already occupied by the senator and her two aides but was ordered out by one of the aides later identified to be a policeman.
It was gathered that the Senate Deputy Minority Whip was on her way to the public hearing of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream), investigating the N5 trillion subsidy allegedly paid to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) when the incident took place.
While speaking exclusively to The Independent, sources at the scene of the incident disclosed that the police aide who was in mufti, pushed away the PASAN official and slapped him when he resisted and insisted on riding in the elevator with the senator.
Odia in a chat with the newspaper admitted retaliating the slap he got from the senator’s aide, leading to an uproar, and denied the rumour that he slapped the senator, a development that was corroborated by the senator herself.
The scuffle between the senator’s aides and the PASAN exco member came to the attention of other staff and PASAN excos who were holding a congress at the time, leading to a big uproar.
The enraged PASAN members stormed out of the congress in a bid to join the fight in defence of their colleague, but the quick intervention of the police prevented exchange of blows.
However, at a peace parley in which the Divisional Police Officer of the National Assembly was present and also some other senators, the issue was amicably resolved with Senator Olujimi apologising on behalf of her overzealous security aide.
The victim, Odia, in a telephone chat with stated that the news that the senator ordered the aide to slap him was not true, adding that he noticed that the aide was being overzealous in his attempt to please the senator.