Serial litigant Senator Omtatah sharpens guns to move to court to challenge Wetang’ula orders gagging media from accessing main parliament
Busia Senator Okiyah Omtatah has now threatened to move to court to challenge the unilateral directives from the National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetangula barring journalists from accessing media centre which was within main ParliamentÂ
The media resource centre has now been converted to a store house where used furnitures have been dumped there awaiting disposal, this controversial and contagious move has elicited reactions and condemnations from the general public
Addressing Journalists outside the now new media centre at Red Cross Building on Monday 22nd July, Omtatah noted that he’s learned with disbelief that journalists were banned from entering Parliament
“I am giving Wetangula an ultimatum that if he don’t rescind the directive he made to bar reporters from going to media centre within seven days, then we shall meet in court. We can’t allow these people to retrogressively take us back to colonial and dictatorship,” Omtatah charged
He made it clear that article 34 of the constitution allows journalists to access all public installations and access to information and no one is allowed by the law even the President to reverse that instrumental provision
Over the last one month now, Parliamentary Journalists have been camping outside Bunge Towers and Red Cross pleading with security details to allow them provide coverage to parliamentary committees, save for few individuals
According to information availed to journalists is that the parliamentary service commission has ordered fresh vetting of all parliamentary journalists with a view to remain with only handful reporters especially four from each mainstreams while others directed to get feeds from their YouTube channels