The senate on Wednesday fired the chief whip and representative of Borno South, Mr Ali Ndume, for criticising President Bola Tinubu’s government.
Recall that Ndume had on Wednesday, July 10 alleged that Tinubu was been held captive by forces in the Presidential Villa.
He said such forces were feeding him with lies and shielding him from selfless Nigerians who can tell him the truth.
The senator who was reacting to a resolution of the senate, which advised the federal government to address the hunger in the land or face the wrath of the people, said nothing appreciable was being done in recent times to deescalate the security challenge in the country, which remained a permanent threat to food security.
“Mr. President is not in the picture of what is happening outside the villa. He has been fenced off and caged so many of us won’t go through the backdoor to engage him.
“Now, they have stopped him from talking and he doesn’t have public affairs managers, except that his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, who writes press statements.
“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 food reserve.
“There is unavailability of food. Food crisis is the worst crisis that any nation can encounter. If we add that to security crisis, it will be severe.”
“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.
“I am very worried not only for the president himself, but myself,” he declared.
Following up on that, the senate president, Mr Godswill Akpabio announced Ndume’s suspension after many of the senators supported it during the plenary.
Ndume’s sack followed a letter from the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Abdullahi Ganduje and the party’s secretary, Mr Bashir Ajibola, the party secretary, which the senate president read during the plenary.
In the letter, the APC national leaders recommended that the Senate relieve Ndume of his position because of his “unguarded utterances” that are “against the federal government.”
They described Ndume as “someone who is bent on dividing the country” and as someone who is not putting the country in a better position in the international community.
The party subsequently recommended that Ndume’s position in the Senate should be taken over by the representative of Borno North in the senate, Mr Tahir Monguno.
After reading the letter, the senate president put it to vote and the senators voted overwhelmingly in support of it.
Akpabio approved the recommendation and directed the sergeant at arms to walk Monguno to the seat of the senate whip on the front row.
With Premium Times report
