Senator Nwaebonyi defends clash with former Minister Ezekwesili

The senator representing Ebonyi North Senatorial District, Sen. Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, has defended his clash with former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, during a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

The clash occurred during a Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions hearing on a fresh petition submitted by Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan against Senate President Godswill Akpabio.

Ezekwesili was present at the hearing alongside Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, counsel to Akpoti-Uduaghan, and the chief petitioner from Kogi Central, Zubairu Yakubu.

Speaking during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, the senator berated the ex-minister for first calling him a hooligan and asking him, a serving lawmaker, to shut up.

He said, “It started when she was asked to be an oath because she said she was a witness. She said, ‘no she can’t be on oath, she can’t oath.’

” As a person, I said I am willing to be sworn on oath so that I can give my own evidence. I was addressing the presiding office. She turned to me and said, ‘Will you shut up your mouth, you are a hooligan.”

According to the Ebonyi lawmaker, he replied Ezekwesili saying: “You are the hooligan. For a mother like you, a grandmother of your age, a former minister of the federal republic to tell a sitting senator to shut up his mouth and added that I am a hooligan.”

Nwebonyi said regardless of what transpired, he has no regret, though he respects Ezekwesili as a woman.

When asked if his response to the former minister was fair, the lawmaker queried why she would treat him in that manner.