Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate for the general election of 2023, cited suspensions from the executive branch for addressing issues such as poverty and budget padding in his criticism of the practice of punishing senators for holding the executive branch accountable.CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
According to the report from the Punch, the Senate has removed Senator Ali Ndume as the Chief Whip and replaced him with Senator Tahir Monguno. Ndume’s replacement by the Senate followed a directive issued to that effect in a letter written by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Umar Ganduje and National Secretary, Senator Bashir Ajibola.
According to the report, The request was put to voice votes by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and loudly affirmed by all the APC senators.
The report revealed that the All Progressive Congress accused Ndume of making hurtful comments against the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
However, Atiku Abubakar in a post he shared on his official X handle expressed disappointment in the Senate’s decision to remove Senator Ali Ndume from his position as Chief Whip after Ndume called on the President to address the country’s pressing issues.
According to Atiku Abubakar;
“It is uncharitable that whenever members of the Senate stand on the floor of the red chamber to perform their statutory duty of calling the executive to order, they are immediately reprimanded for so doing.
When Senator Abdul Ningi called attention of the country to the incident of budget padding in the 2024 Appropriation bill, rather than calling for a thorough investigation into the observation, the reaction of the Senate was to hand him a suspension. Today, the people of Nigeria are victims of ambiguous budget framework upon which appropriations for the current fiscal year are hinged in the face of multiplicity of appropriations.
Only yesterday, Senator Ali Ndume called for the President to wake up to his responsibilities and provide succour to address the biting hunger and poverty in the country. Ironically, the response of the Nigeria Senate to his patriotic warning is to relieve him of his principal office as the Chief Whip of the Senate.”CONTINUE FULL READING>>>>>
