APC considers reinstating Ndume as Senate Chief Whip

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has expressed readiness to prevail on the Senator Godswill Akpabio-led Senate to review the decision to remove Senator Ali Ndume as Chief Whip of the upper legislative chamber.

APC’s National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, dropped the hint after meeting behind closed doors with Ndume on Tuesday at the national secretariat of the party in Abuja.

Ganduje disclosed that Ndume has tendered his apology over his outburst against the President Bola Tinubu-led administration, adding that the party would convey its latest position to the Senator when it reconvenes from its annual recess next month.

He said: “We are quite satisfied with his apology. Like he said, we invited him, and you know the party is the father of everybody. As a party, we are free to invite legislators, we are free to invite members of the executive, and we are even free to invite all the appointed party members in the government. So, that is why we decided to come; it is a family issue we need to resolve.

“And we are writing to the National Assembly, conveying what has transpired between Senator Ndume and the party. And you know he apologised to the party, and we conveyed the same issue to the National Assembly, so that we hope they can review their position.”

Ndume, who admitted he tendered an apology to the party, reiterated that his outburst was in the best interest of the country.

He said: “With what has happened, which you are all aware of, it is not surprising that I am invited to hear my own side, and we had family discussions. I actually accepted the mistake of not talking to the party as a last point, and I promised the party that all my observations as a senior member of the family should have terminated or ended with the party.

“But whatever I said or whatever I did was out of patriotism, and those issues may be said in strong terms, but they are true. But then I should have talked to the party as the last bus stop.”

Recall that the Senate, in line with the directive of the Ganduje-led National Working Committee (NWC), stripped Ndume, representing Borno South Senatorial District, of his position after he claimed that President Bola Tinubu was inaccessible and unaware of the acute hunger being experienced by Nigerians.

The APC had accused Ndume of acting like a mole within the party and working for the opposition political parties after referring to top government functionaries in the President Tinubu-led administration as not only corrupt but insensitive to the plight of Nigerians.

“Nigerians are getting very angry. The government is not doing anything about food scarcity, and it needs to do something urgently. We don’t have a food reserve. There is an unavailability of food. The food crisis is the worst crisis that any nation can encounter. If we add that to the security crisis, it will be severe,” Ndume was quoted as saying in an interview he granted to a media outfit before he was axed in the Senate.

The APC National Working Committee, in a letter co-signed by the National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, and the National Secretary, Senator Ajibola Basiru, called for the removal of Ndume as the Chief Whip of the Senate.