The Abia State Government says Senator for Kogi West, Senator Smart Adeyemi is suffering from “mental illness”.
Chief Press Secretary to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, Mr. Onyebuchi Ememanka, made the assertion in a statement in Umuahia on Tuesday.
He was responding to a comment in which the Kogi senator called the Abia governor a “Champagne-drinking governor” and “drunkard” on the floor of the Senate.
Adeyemi was contributing to a debate on a motion by Senator Stephen Odey, tagged, “Urgent need for the restoration and revalidation of the safe school initiative in Nigeria,” when he suddenly deviated from the subject at hand and launched a tirade against the Abia governor.
He did this in apparent retaliation for a social media post in which Abia South senator, Enyinnaya Abaribe, purportedly attacked Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello.
Adeyemi said, “Despite that some governors are doing their best, we are lucky to have a governor (in Kogi State), who has taken the issue of security as a serious priority.
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“We are bordered by nine states, but we had an experience of the unfortunate incidents that are happening in neighboring states.
“Some governors are committed to the protection of their people, in my state the governor awarded contracts for the renovations of schools and provides security services to them.
“In some states of Nigeria today, where we have highly intelligent people, highly educated people, very enterprising people, like Abia they are governed by drunkards.
“The governor of Abia is a champagne drinking man.
“Abia people are impoverished more than ever before. Abia people are unfortunate.”
Senate President Ahmad Lawan faulted Senator Adeyemi’s choice of language.
However, Senator Abaribe also condemned the attack on his state governor, explaining that he never authored the social media post which Senator Adeyemi relied upon to attack Governor Ikpeazu.
“I will like to make a clarification. Unfortunately, what has happened here today is one of the problems that you see on social media.
“I never made any comments on the Governor of Kogi State. Never. What has happened is what we see going on today,” Abaribe stated.
Reacting to Senator Adeyemi’s tirade, the Abia State Governor’s spokesman said, “Our view is that the Senator is either suffering from a protracted case of mental illness or is battling with occasional fits of schizophrenia which manifests in making careless, dishonorable, unrelated and incoherent statements.
“If Senator Adeyemi was of sound mind, he should have known that when it comes to education, Abia is miles ahead of his home State of Kogi, and a ‘non-compos mentis’.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu does not take alcoholic drinks and he is shocked at the schizophrenic outburst of Senator Adeyemi whom he has never met nor had any dealings whatsoever with officially nor privately.”
He said the Kogi senator must “seek psychiatric help before his case becomes unmanageable.”