The leadership crisis rocking the National Assembly on zoning may worsen in no distance days as both the Senate and House of Representatives are warming up to probe an alleged unappropriated 1.4 trillion expenditure embarked upon by the Niger Delta Development Commission under Senate Godswill Akpabio’s watch.

Senate President Lawan, had last week, set up a seven-member ad-hoc committee to probe the NDDC for embarking on expenditure amounting to N1.4 trillion without appropriation.

The move is seen by many as one to derail Akpabio’s ambition to be Senate president.

The decision to probe activities of the NDDC followed a motion by Senator Adamu Aliero (PDP, Kebbi) during consideration of a report by the Committee on Niger Delta on NDDC’s 2021, 2022 and 2023 budgets.

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President Muhammadu Buhari had, earlier this year, asked the Senate to approve NDDC’s budgets for 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Speaking on this, a source in the lower chamber, disclosed that: “Two major issues are likely to be burning issues, which are the possible probe of the House Committee Chairman on NDDC, Bunmi Tunji-Ojo, who is alleged to be part of the grand deals to impoverish the NDDC and the vexatious issue of unapproved amendments to our Standing Rules.

“We are following them up wherever they go and whatever they do. If the Senators can compromise and cave in to the pressure from Tinubu’s people, that is their problem. We belong to the lower chamber and I especially belong to the opposition. So, I’m not bothered about whatever they do.

“They are doing everything possible to stop the probe because it is a very strong booby trap that can consume Akpabio. They know it and that is why they are trying hard to stop others from aspiring to become the Senate president.

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“For the House of Representatives, they know how stubborn we are and they know too that whoever is speaker will unravel all that had transpired in the NDDC especially as their boy, Bunmi Tunji-Ojo is the chairman.

“So, the best thing, in their thinking, is to stop Wase, Betara, Soli, Jaji and Gadgi. They know Abbas, as their puppet, cannot allow such probe. Is that good for the people of the Niger Delta region where I hail from?

“How would they want me to be happy and join them to commit this havoc against my people and expect me to support their candidate who will do their bidding? They all know these issues so they have to work hard but the day of inauguration will show a different House of Representatives.

“All those signatures are political survival moves, we have done it so it doesn’t matter how many they gather because in 2015, we got more than 200 yet Gbaja lost, he scored less than 170.

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“And because they know members will be very independent on the day of inauguration, Gbaja and his boys have gone ahead to insert open ballot by shouting the names of our preferred choice for speaker as if we are babies.

“On that one, we shall wait and see what happens tomorrow (today) on the floor of the House. We will check our proceedings and once we confirm any point of perjury and forgery, Nigerians will hear from us.”