By Emman Ovuakporie and Johnbosco Agbakwuru 

It was a rowdy session on Friday when a former Senate President, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, and a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Bala Mohammed, appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on FCT investigating the Centenary City Project initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

Anyim, the immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, was accompanied by his political associates to the one-day public hearing on alleged irregularities surrounding the Centenary City Project in which he played a prominent role.

Drama started immediately after the Deputy Minority Leader of the House, Chukwuka Onyema, who represented the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, finished reading his welcome address.

The former Senate President  asked the Speaker’s   representatives to wait because he wanted to make an observation before the investigative hearing could proceed.

As soon as the national anthem was played, Onyeama said he would stay briefly before leaving the venue.

At this point, the Chairman of the House Committee on FCT, Herman Hembe, yielded the floor to the former SGF to make his presentation.

Anyim began his presentation, saying , “When the former Managing Director of Security and Exchange Commission accused you (Hembe) of demanding bribe from her, you pushed for her sack and I   refused to sack her as Secretary to Government of the Federation.”

This drew the ire of Hembe, who represents Vandeikya/Konshisha Federal Constituency of Benue State, especially as it was said he could not preside over the probe committee due to the allegations of corruption against him.

Senator, Anyim Pius Anyim and Herman Hembe

But ignoring the interruption, the former SGF pointedly accused the Benue State-born politician of organising the investigative hearing as a way to get back at him for refusing to heed his plea for the sack of former Managing Director of Security and Exchange Commission, Ms Arunma Oteh, when she accused him of demanding bribe from her.

Besides, Anyim protested the mode of invitation the committee extended to him as the Chairman of the Centenary City Project, arguing that, as a former Senate President, the letter inviting him to appear before the committee would have emanated from the Clerk of the National Assembly and not from the Clerk of the committee.

He said, “When the former Managing Director of Security and Exchange Commission accused you of demanding bribe from her, you pushed for her sack and I refused to sack her as Secretary to Government of the Federation. I will not allow you to use the platform of this committee to victimize me.”

But protesting to Anyim’s statement, Hembe shouted:”Point of order, point of order, point of order.”

Some of his colleagues prevailed on him to allow the former SGF, who was still speaking, to end his speech but Hembe responded: “No, no, no, no, no. Hold on. The former Senate President cannot assume the Chairman of the committee. It’s not fair.Please sir, I have the privilege to be heard.”

But members of the committee insisted that he should allow Anyim to continue. At this point, Hembe said: “Hold on, I am going to allow him to finish but hold on.”

“Let me just say that we are a House of free laws, we are a House of order. We are a House of due process. This is not an avenue…. Let me just say to the former President of the Senate and the former SGF that, in my opening remarks, I tried to show you courtesy.

“Please, don’t interrupt, as far as this hearing is concerned, I’m Chairman here. I am Chairman and I would not allow you to usurp that position. I am here on no account.

“I have shown you respect. I even made a comment in the beginning that you ought not to appear by saying clearly that it was brought to my attention by certain quarters, that we shouldn’t have invited the former Senate President to a hearing like this out of sheer respect. Out of nothing else but sheer respect.

“There’s no law that says you   can’t do it. It’s just respect for the fact that he’s been Senate President and I took note of that and spoke to my colleague Chairman in the Senate, Senator Dino Melaye, last night.

“And I asked him to communicate with the former Senate President and ask if we will excuse him today. It doesn’t mean that if we excuse him, later, we won’t write to request for such information.

“What we are doing here borders on his activities as Secretary to Government of the Federation. For Mr former Senate President to impute bias when he does not even know what we are doing here … We have not even said a word and he’s already inputting bias. “Anyim fired back, a development Hembe took exception to, saying :” Do not interrupt me, do not interrupt me, I reject that. Let me finish. Sit down, you cannot, let me finish.”

Then to the members of the committee he said, “Honourable   members, let me say this to the former Senate President. Like I said earlier, we will allow everybody the opportunity to speak here but I’m a little dismayed that for someone, who was invited for this programme and felt he ought not to be invited, has already delved into the subject matter. I would allow Senator Pius Anyim an opportunity to go ahead and finish his statement.

“When he finishes, we will rule and there’s no way he or anybody can attempt to disrupt this proceeding, this proceeding will conclude today. Nothing will change and so you can go ahead and make your statement and make any imputation you want to make; when you are done, we will continue, I so rule.”

Then taking the floor, the former SGF said: “Thank you, Mr Chairman, I think that’s what I expected you to really do. I should be able to state my position, then you rule.

“Mr. Chairman, I said, one: That you have told everybody   that cares to listen that when the former DG of Security and Exchange Commission accused you of demanding bribe from her, you pushed for her to be sacked and I refused to sack her while I was SGF and so this is an opportunity for you to pay me back.

“Mr. Chairman, I would not allow you to use the National Assembly platform to pursue this personal vendetta, it’s not acceptable and I will not submit to it because it offends the rule of fair-hearing and all I’m asking for is fair-hearing.

“Two, Mr Chairman, you have been threatening to conduct this public hearing for over a year now. In fact, you ended last year with it and, this year, you started again with it. You scheduled it for the 27th of January and you later moved it to the 1st of February   and again moved it to 3rd of February.

“Mr Chairman, we only discovered your game plan for all the postponements when you started sending messages to the   Managing Director to come and see you privately.

“It was after all your efforts to get the Managing Director to come and see you privately failed that you confirmed this date. I want you to know that nobody will see you privately and we are here for the hearing and we will have the hearing.

“Mr Chairman, honourable members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced that Mr Chairman has a deep-seated personal interest and bias in this matter and so, he’s not in a position to guarantee fair-hearing to myself, the Centenary City management and indeed to the entire subject matter.

“I, accordingly, demand that Mr Chairman should disqualify himself and let the Vice Chairman take over and let us continue. So Mr. chairman, you can hand over to your vice and excuse us to continue. And so, if you would not be able to disqualify yourself, there’s no reason anybody will submit himself to a system, an arrangement that does not guarantee fair-hearing.

“So, we are here for the hearing, we are ready for the hearing but we should get fair-hearing”.

Hembe, replying, said: “Thank you, this is a straight forward matter. Thank you very much Mr former Senate President.”

As he wanted to speak further, other committee members in attendance suggested a postponement or at least brief suspension of the session but Hembe protested.

He said, “No, don’t worry, we should not subject this matter to a break, we are here for this hearing and we should just allow this matter to proceed.”

Turning again to Anyim, Hembe said: “Mr former Senate President, Senator Pius Anyim, we invited you here for the public hearing. And like I said in one forum and I remember it categorically, that if I had sent messages, messages are beautiful things, they are basically on phones and they remain there. Such a person is free to bring those kinds of documents forward and say this is how Hon. Hembe has contacted me or whatever.

“My bottom line is this, thank you for your contributions. We have excused you at the beginning of this programme. The excuse is still open and, if you want to take the option of the excuse as a former presiding officer of the Senate, you are free. On the strength of that, my ruling here is that I’m going to preside over   this public hearing and this public hearing will continue.”

Even the former Minister of FCT in attendance at the hearing, Mohammed, also lost his cool, especially following the barrage of questions from committee members to the Manging Director of Centenary City Project, Dr Ike Odenigwe, on how the award of contracts for the project were awarded.

Specifically, Hon. Ayo Omidiran had pointed out that”it was out of place to flout President Jonathan’s directive and they did what they wished.”

But the former FCT Minister interjected: “I think at this stage I want to be sworn-in. Haba. I am not talking except when I am asked specific questions on this issue as it appears there is a communication gap in this whole gamut. You are behaving childishly”.

Mohammed’s statement caused uproar as some of the lawmakers started shouting, asking him to withdraw the statement and even displayed the Constitution which gives them the power to ask questions that must be answered by government officials or former officials when summoned.

The former minister maintained his position.  “I will not take it back, take me to court, do your worst, my privilege is being impugned upon by this show of childishness”, he said.