The Senate has removed Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume as the Senate Leader. Since Ndume’s removal, tongues have been wagging as many observers contemplate what went wrong. In this report, Assistant Editor ONYEDI OJIABOR traces the senator’s travails to the leadership tussle in the Upper Legislative Chamber.
The removal of Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume as the Senate Leader was dramatic.
Senate President Bukola Saraki, who announced Ndume’s removal from his exalted number three position in the Senate hierarchy, kept everybody in the dark as the Upper Chamber conducted its legislative business on Tuesday.
Ndume’s claim that he was neither consulted, nor told the reason for his removal did not help matters.
The senator representing Borno South was said to have been given the option to resign over his alleged “excesses”, but he allegedly ignored the option.
An insider, who does not want his name in print, said Ndume was to be given an option to announce his resignation, but that his departure from the floor close to the end of the plenary gave the senators and the Senate President no other option than to announce his removal.
He said: “The Chief Whip, Senator Olusola Adeyeye, and the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, were asked to persuade Ndume to tender his resignation on the floor on Tuesday, but Ndume’s disappearance from the floor gave them no other choice. The All Progressives Congress (APC) senators’ letter was submitted and it had to be read once it was signed by an overwhelming majority of the senators involved.”
Over 38 APC senators signed the removal notice forwarded to the Senate President for announcement.
Some have already dubbed the removal, which is likely to engender unintended ripple effects in the Senate, a palace coup perfected at dead of the night outside the shores of the country.
As the drama unfolded, Ndume rushed into the chamber, apparently having been tipped off where he was praying. It was, however, too late for him. The deed had already been done, with his removal and replacement announced by Saraki.
The build up to Ndume’s removal as Senate Leader did not start on Monday when the APC Senate Caucus was said to have met to perfect and seal the deal.
The rejigging of the Senate leadership, including the dropping of Ndume as the Senate Leader, began almost immediately after the controversial emergence of Saraki as Senate President on June 9, 2015.
One way or the other, Saraki had protected Ndume. Saraki’s argument was that he was not in a position to force Ndume to resign, since it was the APC Caucus that nominated him.
At a meeting in the Presidential Villa attended by the APC leadership where the issue of the leadership tussle in the Senate was broached, Ndume was said to have told the party leadership that they lacked the powers to force him to resign.
When Saraki announced the replacement of Ndume with Senator Ahmed Lawan on Tuesday, it did not come to many observers as a surprise. The removal of Ndume was seen as the culmination of the intrigues and unending manoeuvrings between the contending forces in the Senate.
To some, Ndume should simply go home to nurse his wound, as he was the architect of his own misfortune. Those in this group accused Ndume of being “too close” to a camp in the Presidential Villa. The camp Ndume belongs to, they said, is “fast losing his grip in the political chess game of the Villa.”
It may not be out of place to say that Ndume may retreat to plot how to fight back. Those who know him say categorically that Ndume will fight back at the appropriate. How and when he would do it, they did not say.
The removal and replacement of Ndume was contained in a letter addressed to Saraki by the APC Senate Caucus. There was a pin-drop silence in the chamber as Saraki read the two-paragraph letter.
The letter titled: “Notice of Change of Leadership”, read in part: “This is to inform Your Excellency and the Senate that after several meetings held on Monday, January 9, 2017, and upon due deliberation and consultation, the APC Caucus of the Senate, hereby wish to notify you of the change in the leadership of the Senate and that the new Senate Leader is now Senator Ahmad Lawan, representing Yobe North Senatorial District. Kindly accept our esteem regards and best assurances.”
Although Ndume claimed not to be aware of his “sins,” insiders traced his travails to his pronouncements at the Presidential Villa where he distanced himself from the resolution of the Senate to reject the nomination of Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The declaration of Ndume that the Senate did not actually reject the nomination of Magu was counted as one of the sins of the Borno South lawmaker.
The Senate, through its spokesman, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, was quick to disown Ndume and restated its resolve to reject Magu’s nomination.
Some other observers attributed the removal to the cold war between the two main camps in the Senate, the Senate Unity Forum, led by Senator Barnabas Gemade, and Like Minds Senators, led by Saraki himself.
Although Gemade was visible in the affairs of the Senate Unity Forum, Senator Lawan was considered the unseen hand driving the activities of the forum.
During the fight for the seat of the Senate President, while Saraki was actively supported by the Like Minds Senators, Lawan was backed by the Senate Unity Forum. Saraki carried the day with the active support of PDP senators.
The removal of Ndume, it was gathered, was part of a deal reached by the Senate Unity Forum and Like Minds Senators to close ranks in the Senate. Insiders also referred to what they called “Ndume’s excesses.”
After Saraki’s announcement, an apparently shocked Ndume rushed to address reporters, to express his total ignorance about his removal and the reasons behind it.
He said: “Let me say I don’t have much to say, because actually I was leading the business of the Senate and when it was like quarter to one, as usual, I asked my deputy to sit in for me while I go for prayers.
“On coming back, I discovered that the session was over and one of your colleagues approached me and said leader, what happened and I said what happened and he said there has been announcement of change of leadership. I said I didn’t know.
“At this point that is the position. I didn’t know that there was change of leadership, because I was not there. I went to pray and I didn’t know what actually happened and I cannot say more than that.”
Prodded to throw more light on what could have led to his removal, Ndume insisted he was not briefed before the decision to fire him was taken. “I don’t know what happened and I cannot say what I do not know,” he also stated.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Abdullahi, however provided some insight into the development.
Abdullahi told reporters that with the announcement of Lawan as the leader of APC Senate Caucus, Ndume automatically ceased to be Senate Leader.
He said: “I speak for the Senate. You heard the content of the letter from the APC Caucus. I am not the spokesman of the APC Caucus, but I am a member and I am here to speak for the Senate. It will be very difficult for me and I do not want to find myself in this controversy.
“The announcement is self explanatory. Another leader was announced and as far as I am concerned, the new name announced is the leader of the majority and automatically the Senate Leader.”
Senator Kabiru Marafa, a close ally of Senator Lawan who spoke on the removal of Ndume, noted that APC factions in the Senate agreed to effect the removal.
The lawmaker representing Zamfara Central said Ndume’s removal was also in line with Order 36 (g) of the Senate Standing Rules.
Marafa, who became a thorn in the flesh of the Senate and its leadership over the emergence of Saraki as Senate President, said majority of APC senators endorsed the letter to remove Ndume as Senate Leader.
He said: “Anybody who wished APC well wanted these changes in the Senate. What you have seen today is a culmination of all the consultations among by APC senators.
“Our Standing Rules has specified how to remove the leadership of a party in the S enate. At the meeting where Ndume was removed, majority of APC lawmakers agreed.”
Marafa continued: “When we reconvened for the 8th Assembly, you all know what happened and the leadership tussle we had between the Like Minds Senators (LMS) and the Senate Unity Forum, (SUF) where Senator Lawan contested under the SUF and Senator Bukola Saraki contested under the LMS.
“Like we all know, it is God who gives leadership and God gave it to Senator Bukola Saraki and that brought some friction between the two camps of the same All Progressives Congress.
“Naturally, when there is such crisis, the next port of call is the parents – in this case, we all know who the parent of all politicians are, who is the President, the leader of the party.
“We rushed to the party and said this is what happened. The party, after looking at the whole scenario and all that happened, said since he (Saraki) has taken this one, the remaining four positions — that is the Senate Leader, Deputy Senate Leader, Chief Whip and the Deputy Chief Whip — should be ceded to the SUF faction of the APC in order to bring the caucus together.
“But as fate would have it, the LMS faction didn’t see it that way that time. That was what led to all the crises. We in the SUF felt that it was disobedience (by the LMS faction) to the party.
“From that time till today, anybody who wishes the APC well had all these at the back of their minds and all hands had been on deck to ensure that the crisis is resolved.
“Pressure had been mounting on all the APC senators, urging all of us to come together. We (SUF) insisted that the only way we could come together was when we all respect our party, because it was the party that brought us into this place (Senate).
“If the party says this thing belongs to us (SUF), we want you to give it to us. What you have seen today is just a culmination of all the pressure mounting over time.
“Our rule says that once you become anything, the only way you can be removed is through constitutional means. Now, since there was a nomination, the only way we can reverse it is to follow the rules. Our Standing Rules, precisely Order 32(6), spells out how leadership can be removed – leadership, not presiding officers; presiding officers have the rules that specify how they can be removed.”
On Ndume’s claim that he was not consulted before his removal Marafa said: “Ndume does not need to know or be there. The Standing Rules says that a party has the right to remove anybody. The majority accepted and that is final.”
Order 32 (6) of the Senate Standing rules which talked about change of leadership, states that: “After due notice of the Senate, each party has the right to change its Leader or Whip, provided that the change is made by majority of the senators of the party in the Senate”.
The Nation