A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Monday Ubani has said the heated exchange between Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, senator representing Ebonyi North, and former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, during a senate hearing on Tuesday was triggered by Ezekwesili’s remarks.
The verbal altercation occurred at the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions hearing on a fresh petition submitted by Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
Speaking on Channels Television, Ubani, who was a witness at the hearing and sat in-between the duo said Ezekwesili who was a bit emotional told Senator Nwaebonyi to ‘shut up his mouth’.
Ubani said Ezekwesili also made uncomplimentary remarks against him but he decided to ignore and not respond to it.
He said “Today is the continuation of the Ethics committee on the hearing of the petition that was presented by Senator Natasha. I want to cut it short. It was in the course of the proceedings that the chairman of the panel made a statement which the distinguished senator, Nwaebonyi agreed with”.
“Oby Ezekwesili got angry and asked him to shut up his mouth. That is actually what led to that altercation. I am a christian and one of the things that I desire in life is that I must make heaven and that is the truth. I won’t like a situation where somebody will come and lie against any person”.
“Oby herself made a very uncomplimentary statement against me as person but being a man, I didn’t respond. I didn’t even look towards her direction. I felt that probably she is angry concerning this matter. This matter is a bit emotional, people are emotional about it and rationality has taken a flight. They don’t want to look at issues from a rational point of view”.
“But the point is, when this proceeding was going on, it was Oby Ezekwesili’s interjection asking the distinguished senator to shut up his mouth that actually provoked the man and people react to issues differently and he felt she shouldn’t have spoken to her that way”.
