THE Senate has sacked Ali Ndume as the Chief Whip of the Senate following his criticism of Bola Tinubu’s administration
The upper legislative chamber consequently replaced him with another senator, Tahir Monguno.
Before his sack, the national secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bashir Ajibola, and the national chairman, Umar Ganduje, had in a letter sought Ndume’s removal.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, put the request to a voice vote, and all of the APC senators responded in favour of his removal.
Ndume was accused by the APC of harmful remarks directed at President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
He repeated the claim in an interview with Arise TV on July 12, where he alleged that ex-President Muhammadu Buhari was a more accessible leader.
Ndume accused Tinubu’s aides of “shielding and fencing in” their principal from lawmakers and ministers.
The ICIR reported that Ndume accused Tinubu of being out of touch with some of the issues plaguing the country, including food crisis and insecurity.
According to a report, Ndume told journalists on Wednesday, July 10, 2024, that the President had been “fenced off by plutocrats.”
He also said that poverty, insecurity, hunger and other problems confronting citizens were not being addressed by the President.
“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. Food crisis is the worst crisis that any nation can encounter. If we add that to the 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,” Ndume stated.
Under Tinubu, Nigeria has faced snowballing prices of food and persistent insecurity.
Inflation has also remained unmanageable under his watch.
Despite sweeping reforms that accompanied the suspension of fuel subsidies and unification of exchange rates, most Nigerians have continued to live in hardship.
A reporter with the ICIR
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