PRESIDENCY DID NOT SEIZE OUR DIPLOMATIC PASSPORTS; MARK, TANBU!

PRESIDENT of the Senate, David Mark, declared Sunday that his diplomatic passport was intact and was never seized.
  It was also learnt yesterday that the diplomatic passport of House of Representatives’ Speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, was never seized, contrary to allegation by the Abubakar Baraje-led People’s Democratic Party (PDP) splinter group.
  The Baraje group Sunday called on President Goodluck Jonathan to restore the diplomatic passports of the two National Assembly presiding officers to avoid overheating the polity unnecessarily.
  

Mark, who spoke with The Guardian through his Special Adviser on Media, Kola Ologbodion, stated that there was no time his diplomatic passport was seized by anybody, adding that “as I speak, the diplomatic passport is intact.”
  In the House of Representatives, it was learnt that Speaker Tambuwal’s diplomatic passport has not been seized.
  A member of the House, who would not want to be mentioned, said there cannot be any iota of truth in the statement that the Speaker’s diplomatic passport has been seized by the President.
  “It is a common knowledge that both Senate President and House of Representatives’ Speaker are entitled to diplomatic passports. So, their passports cannot be seized, I can tell you this for fact,” he said.
  

A statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP splinter group, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, yesterday and titled “PDP demands restoration of diplomatic passports of Mark, Tambuwal, and other lawmakers” reads in part: “We are worried about the dire implications of the reported directive by the Presidency for the withdrawal of the diplomatic passports of Senate President, David Mark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, and all other members of the National Assembly.”
  The Baraje group later Sunday withdrew its earlier statement following discovery that the allegation was not true.
  In a second statement it issued yesterday, the group stated: “Please note that following the new revelations from both the Presidency and the National Assembly through our National Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje, that there is no iota of truth on the report that the Presidency has directed the withdrawal of the diplomatic passports of the leadership and members of the National Assembly as reported in most of the national dailies today, we are hereby withdrawing the release on this subject matter pending further investigation of the facts.”

Source: guardiannewspapers.