Tempers flared on Thursday at the National Assembly when the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, appeared before a joint committee of the two legislative chambers to make presentations on the Police Force’s 2025 budget proposal.
Trouble started while Egbetokun was giving a breakdown of funds expended in the construction of police headquarters in five zonal commands across the country.
Egbetokun had barely started his presentation when a member of the House of Representatives, Mark Esset from Akwa Ibom, interjected him, asking why the content of the IGP’s presentation was different from a copy of the same document given to him.
His position was echoed by Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi, a principal officer of the upper legislative chamber, who also insisted on having the same copy the IGP was reading.
“We are here to serve Nigerians and Nigerians should see us as a very serious institution.
We are not against the presentation of the IGP. But I, as a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, should have what the IGP is reading,” Nwebonyi said.
But a co-chairman of the Police joint committee, Rep
Abubakar Makki Yalleman overruled him and urged the IGP to continue with his presentation, a development that infuriated Nwebonyi the more.
Piqued by what he might have considered a humiliating treatment, Nwebonyi packed his documents and stormed out of the hearing room, with some members of the committee members jeering at him.
But a member of the committee from the House of Representatives, Yusuf Gagdi, defended the action of other members of the committee, saying that the decision to allow the IGP to continue with his presentation was in line with established parliamentary procedures.
Gagdi said it’s completely out of place for lawmakers to interject when they do not have the floor or are recognized to speak.
According to him, Rep. Esset and Senator Nwebonyi were not recognised to speak at the time they did.
During his presentation, the IGP lamented what he described as gross underfunding of the police force and urged the lawmakers to remove the police from the envelope budgetary system.
IGP Egbetokun informed the committee that President Bola Tinubu has increased the yearly police recruitment quota from 10,000 to 30,000, saying the action will greatly improve the Force’s performance.
He urged the National Assembly to help the police deliver on its mandate with adequate funding, saying that the police have continued to depend only on budgetary allocations.