Senate leader addresses alleged clash with Akpabio

The Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has denied allegations of being involved in a physical altercation with Senate President Godswill Akpabio.

According to reports, Jackson Ude claimed on his X handle that Senator Bamidele confronted Akpabio in the Senate cafeteria, accusing him of sidelining lawmakers from the South by awarding lucrative committee positions to his Northern associates.

However, in a swift response through his media team, Senator Bamidele dismissed the allegations as baseless and false.

Describing Ude as a serial blackmailer and a “cash-and-carry” journalist, Bamidele clarified that no physical altercation occurred between him and Akpabio on Wednesday.

The statement read: “For the record, it is a verifiable fact that Senator Bamidele has never been involved in physical assault in over two decades of his political trajectory, not even when he was a young man leading the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) as President.

“It is surprising that the purveyor of this misleading information in his selfish agenda and unprofessional conduct threw ethos of Journalism into waste bin and decided to feast on roadside gists to tarnish the image of the Senate Leader.

“We are aware that the fake news is meant to cause disaffection within the Senate and by extension; heating up the political system.

“To think that the Senate Leader, President of the Senate and other principal officers of the Senate together received the Chinese Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. YU Dunhai and his delegation few minutes after leaving the plenary on Wednesday is a significant testimony against Ude’s imagination.

“Further to this, photographs of the Chinese envoys with the leadership of the Senate were widely published in today’s major national newspapers. It is equally verifiable that the Senate Leader and the Senate President both drove out of the National Assembly premises in the same vehicle yesterday.

“This time again, the Senate Leader is sounding a note of warning to all attention seekers in the ilk of Ude to be careful and not take the Leader’s gentlemanliness for granted.

“Henceforth, the Leader will be forced to use the instrumentality of the law to protect himself and his office as enshrined in the CyberCrime Act 2015. We, therefore, urge the public to disregard this misinformation and treat it with the disrespect it deserves.

“Nigeria’s disruptive fifth columnists have been failing. This is another remarkable failure. The 10th Senate is a uniquely united assembly of noble and patriotic Nigerians, hence no subterfuge can alter the bond.”

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