Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion MP Amery Browne is seek­ing to have Gov­ern­ment MP Anil Roberts in­ves­ti­gat­ed by Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for al­leged­ly mis­lead­ing the House when Roberts de­fend­ed a Nic­ki Mi­naj con­cert last week. Last week, Browne had called on Roberts to speak about use of ob­scene lan­guage at the con­cert. Roberts de­nied there was any use of such lan­guage. Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, in the House, Browne quot­ed from Mi­naj's tune "Mon­ster" to il­lus­trate his point, not­ing the song's ex­ple­tives, which he delet­ed.

Browne said: "Mr Speak­er, Nic­ki Mi­naj said the fol­low­ing words on stage dur­ing the con­cert per­for­mance of 'Mon­ster'" Browne then quot­ed Mi­naj's lyrics: "Ok, first things first, I'll eat your brains, then I'mma start rock­ing gold teeth and fangs, Cause that's what a M.....F...ing mon­ster do, Hair­dress­er from Mi­lan, that what mon­ster do." Browne said the words were not cen­sored in the con­cert when the phrase and ad­di­tion­al ob­scen­i­ties were re­peat­ed at mul­ti­ple points dur­ing the per­for­mance by both Mi­naj and the crowd which in­clud­ed young chil­dren in a sta­ge­side zone.

Browne said he had unedit­ed footage of the con­cert which was broad­cast on YouTube. He said he al­so had a tran­script of the con­cert made. He there­fore con­tend­ed that Roberts' state­ment was not true and Roberts "knew full well" (sic) that it was not. He said Roberts was present at the con­cert and would have wit­nessed first­hand what the footage re­vealed. The PNM MP not­ed that the de­lib­er­ate or wil­ful mak­ing of un­true state­ments in the House by an MP was a se­ri­ous con­tempt of the House. House Speak­er Wade Mark said he would re­serve rul­ing on the re­quest.