Jittery Reps Member James Faleke Orders Seizure Of Energy Commission Staffer’s Phone For Taking His Picture Without Permission During Budget Defence

According to emerging details

There was a mild drama on Thursday at the venue of the ongoing defence of the 2016 Budget before the House of Representatives as a member, Honourable James Faleke ordered for the seizure of a phone snapshot taken during the budget defence of the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN).

Hon Faleke contested the Kogi State gubernatorial election as deputy to the late Prince Abubakar Audu who was the All Progressive Congress’s governorship candidate that died before INEC declared the election inconclusive.

The lawmaker was furious at a photo shot taken at him with a phone camera and quickly ordered that the phone be seized by the Committee secretariat staff and brought to him at the budget session.

Chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology Hon Beni Lar, who was seated with other lawmakers were in-between the budget figures of the ECN before a snapshot flashed on Faleke who immediately called for the head of the photographer.

Consequently, the budget defence was temporarily stalled as Hon Falake insisted on getting to the root of the matter as to why his picture was taken without his consent

However, a staff of the ECN, Mr Bala Mohammed stated that he unknowingly too the photo shot and quickly apologised, saying that he mistakenly took the photograph with his malfunctioning android phone.
Apologising to the lawmaker, he explained that it was an attempt to switch-on the phone, which he noticed had switched-off that led to the snapshot.

Faleke later soft-pedalled on his request for the seizure of the phone and rather asked the erring staff to delete all his recent photoshots which he did.

In the budget defence, the Commission had proposed N203,646,177.00 as its Overhead which included Local Transport and Training N11,600,000.00;Electricity Charges N12,721,666.56;Maintenance of Office Building/Residential Quarters N7,234,809.00; Legal Services N10,469,619.00 among other item sub-heads.
Meanwhile, the House Committee had queried the huge figures listed under Overhead Budget of the ECN and some of its parastatals in the 2016 budget.

However, the Director General and CEO of the ECN Prof Eli Jidere Bala defended the Commission’s budget saying that it had debt profile of N7,654,772,827.81 from 2009-2012 which was due to non release of funds.

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