• Good riddance to bad rubbish, says pro-democracy group
• Monguno gets Chief Whip as Senate moves Ndume to tourism committee

From Muyiwa Adeyemi, Kehinde Olatunji (Lagos) and Azimazi
Momoh Jimoh (Abuja)

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, moved swiftly to seal a big crack in its wall by removing Senator Ali Ndume as Chief Whip.The move, however, has elicited diverse reactions amid warnings that the party’s dalliance with crisis could result in an implosion, even as the country’s democracy bears the brunt for the controversial removal of the Borno State lawmaker.

The sacking of Ndume as a principal officer came as a not-too-surprising climax, following the latter’s bitter criticisms of the President Bola Tinubu government and co-legislators.

Ndume had said: “The President should wake up. It seems he isn’t in the picture of what is happening because he has been caged off. He has been fenced off by plutocrats. He should open his doors and meet those who will tell him the truth. Unfortunately, the people who will tell him the truth won’t struggle to meet him.

“Nigerians are getting very, very angry. The government is not doing anything about the food scarcity and it needs to do something urgently. We don’t have a food reserve. There is an unavailability of food. A food crisis is the worst crisis that any nation can encounter. If we add that to the security crisis, it will be severe.”

The Guardian had, on Tuesday, reported that there were moves to remove Ndume as a principal officer of the 10th Senate.The embattled senator however is no stranger to pointing an accusing finger at the chief occupants of Aso Rock Villa.

In 2020, the presidency had challenged Ndume to substantiate his allegation that President Muhammadu Buhari was surrounded by “kleptocrats”. The senator had earlier in a press conference asked Buhari to break up the COVID-19 palliative committee of the federal government headed by Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Farouq.

“I have reliable information that even the names they generated are fake. The BVN is not fraud-proof, one person will generate thousands of names and after conniving with banks, they are issued BVN. Investigation will reveal all these,” he alleged.

Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, had responded in part: “It is disappointing to hear a politician call out unnamed individuals in the administration and accuse them of unnamed transgressions. If this politician has evidence, then he should make public their identities as well as his proof. Innuendo is not proof.”

BEFORE Ndume’s ejection, Senate President Godswill Akpabio had read a letter from the APC signed by National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, which said: “Senator Ndume has continued to attack President Tinubu and his administration, even though he’s a member of the All Progressives Congress. He has continued to attack this government.

“His recent interview is another clear example. We urge him to resign his membership in the APC. His frequent attacks are affecting foreign direct investments in the country. We can’t continue to sit back and allow Ndume to attack this administration.

“We call on the leadership of the Senate to sanction him and replace him as the Chief Whip of the Senate. He can no longer continue to represent the party as the Chief Whip. We urge the caucus of the APC to immediately replace him and in his place, appoint Mohammed Tahir Monguno as the Chief Whip.”

Akpabio, after reading the letter, asked all APC senators present in the chamber whether the prayers in the letter should be approved. The response was in the affirmative.

Ndume was immediately replaced by Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno). He was also relieved of his position as vice chairman of the Appropriation Committee and reassigned as the new chairman of the Senate Committee on Tourism, following a reshuffling of the Senate standing committees.

Ndume was conspicuously absent at the plenary while his matter was being discussed. Also, the Senate rejected a motion seeking to take punitive measures against Ndume for referring to lawmakers as kleptomaniacs.

The move was rejected when a point of order was raised by Senator Fasuyi Cyril (Ekiti). Cyril had urged the Senate to take punitive measures against Ndume for the comment.

However, when Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, put the matter to a voice vote, there was a unanimous rejection. The Senate thereafter dissolved into an executive session.

BUT reacting, a former media aide to ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Bashir Ahmad, said APC is on the verge of an implosion. Speaking on X after the Senate announced the removal of Ndume, Ahmad said: “I am afraid that our party, the APC, is on the verge of repeating the mistakes made by the PDP between 2011 and 2015. As a political party, we should be open to welcoming individuals, especially those who can contribute to our electoral success, rather than doing the opposite.”

A rights group, the Human Rights Writers Association (HURIWA), described the action of the Senate as a disaster for democracy, saying: “The action of the 10th Senate by shutting up a senator from expression his opinion freely is dictatorial, despicable, and reprehensible. Nigerians should now see that we are sleepwalking into full-blown dictatorship and tyranny of a powerful president. This must be resisted and condemned outright.”

In a statement released by its National Coordinator, HURIWA said: “This is a degeneration of democracy and we are headed for totalitarianism such as the type we see in Rwanda. This political trajectory is being orchestrated by the unelected national leadership of the All Progressives Congress, which should be seen for what it is. What is disloyalty in Senator Ali Ndume expressing his personal opinion on the state of food insecurity and national security?”

HURIWA added: “The Nigerian Constitution of 1999 (as amended) provides for the right to freedom of expression, and why should the All Progressives Congress undermine the constitutional right to freedom of expression? In the United Kingdom and the USA, where we copied the system of government and the democracy we practice, individuals in Congress and Parliament are allowed to express their opinions on how the government should work.”

On its part, the Coalition for Parliamentary Democracy (CPD), in a statement by its National Coordinator, Dr Menike Johnson, noted: “The sack of Ndume will diminish the confidence of the majority of senators from speaking the truth to issues of national interest either on the floor or outside the precincts of the parliament.

“This development has introduced a crack in the walls of the Akpabio leadership. The leadership is always a bunch, and they act as one. Once a member is removed by impeachment, as it has happened in this Ndume scenario, it has always created a threat to the survival of the presiding officer, in this circumstance, Akpabio.”

HOWEVER, a pro-democracy group, The Democratic Front (TDF), lauded the Senate for its decision to remove Ndume as Chief Whip. The group said it noticed with discomfort recently, that Ndume has been involved in a series of dramatic controversies against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the APC-led Federal Government of which he is an active member.

It said this has been the case since the retrenchment of his daughter from the workforce of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in April this year. In a statement signed by its Chairman, Alhaji Danjuma Muhammad, and Secretary, Wale Adedayo, TDF said: “We recall that the controversial Senate Chief Whip once made careless remarks and insinuations that could have incited commotion in the polity, when the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and a few staff of CBN were moved to Lagos, in the effort to cut the cost of governance and ease the protocol of government-private sector engagements in the nation’s commercial capital.

“We were shocked and alarmed when Ndume described the APC government of President Bola Tinubu as a kakistocracy (government by the most clueless people).

“For us in the TDF, it is the climax of pedestrian irresponsibility for a member of the ruling party and the Chief Whip of the Nigerian Senate to publicly and derogatorily insult himself and his colleagues over a contentious national issue, in which he is obviously on the wrong side.

“We strongly believe that the uncivil and confrontational approach of Ndume to important national issues, coupled with his backtracking skill to flip-flop on his previous views, smirks of an addict that requires help and attention from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLA), and an individual that lacks the mental and intellectual ability to advance superior arguments on the floor of the Nigerian Senate.”

The group said that in competence and merit, Ndume does not qualify to be elected into the National Assembly, much less be the Chief Whip.

“We salute the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for his prompt and informed decision to save the party from the embarrassment of a disloyal member, by requesting for the removal and immediate replacement of Ndume as Chief Whip of the Senate,” the statement said.