By Damilare Adeleye
Senator Mohamed Ali Ndume representing Borno South District has been removed as Chief Whip of the 10th Senate.
The decision was supported by members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senate Caucus through a voice vote led by Senate President Godswill Akpabio during the plenary session on Wednesday.
Tahir Mungono representing Borno North has been appointed as Ndume’s replacement.
This move follows Ndume’s recent criticisms of President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
In response, the APC’s national leadership, represented by national chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje and Secretary, Ajibola Bashiru, urged Ndume in a letter addressed to the Senate Caucus to resign from the APC and join any opposition party of his choice.
It was learnt that some loyalists of Tinubu were also plotting to get Ndume suspended from the Senate.
Sources at the National Assembly told newsmen anonymously that pro-Tinubu Senators were planning to not just strip Ndume of his position but equally suspend him like Senator Abdul Ningi (PDP, Bauchi Central).
Ndume had in an interview with newsmen at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja last week said, “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 his spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, who writes press statements. Nigerians are getting 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.”
Ndume, during an interview with Arise TV programme on Friday, said the country is being led by those who are unfit to govern, prioritising personal interests over the well-being of the nation and its citizens.
He said the “government is going down,” adding that it is “run by kakistocrats”.
“The government is also populated by kleptocrats, but unfortunately that is not what the president is up to; he really meant renewed hope, but you can only do that when you have people around you that are on the same type of thinking,” he said.
Ndume expressed concern over recent government policies, such as the cybercrime levy, which faced public opposition.
Ndume had also criticised the limited access to the president, stating that some ministers only meet the president during council meetings and that the president is often the first to leave.
“I’m the chief whip, and if the chief whip can’t have access to the president, the new senators won’t have access either,” he said.
Ndume had emphasised the need for the president to tap into Nigeria’s resources and surround himself with competent individuals, urging him to appoint democrats to key positions and ensure a more inclusive and effective governance.
He stressed that this would enable the president to harness the country’s potential and tackle pressing challenges.
“The president needs people who will realise his dream and tell him when something is wrong,” he said.
But his submissions triggered series of reactions from the pro-Tinubu camp as Senator Sunday Karimi (Kogi West) and the ruling APC both knocked the Borno lawmaker, describing his statement as derogatory.
Impeccable sources disclosed that three of the four senators plotting Ndume’s suspension and ouster as the Chief Whip are from the South West – Ekiti, Ogun and Lagos, while another Senator from Kogi is also part of the agenda.
It was learnt that Akpabio is in a fix, considering that Ndume was the Director-General of the Stability Group which worked hard to make him President of the Senate in June 2023.
It was, however, hinted that some Northern senators were waiting for the cat to be let out of the bag during plenary before they would take a position.
A source said, “But of course, you know the Northern Senators will rise against another plan to destabilise their caucus, barely a few months after Ningi was suspended.”