By Haruna Salami
The threat to impeach Senator Bukola Saraki as Senate President may have subsided now, but Senator Ali Ndume
representing Borno South has said it is a matter when and if Saraki will keep to a gentle man agreement that he will not used his position to antagonize the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Speaking with Sharpedgenews at the National Assembly, Ndume said “I don’t know when we are going to change leadership of the Senate, but that is always on the table, because as a person I will not be sitting down there and the minority will preside over the majority. When I was Senate Majority leader, I relinquished my position when my APC party caucus said it didn’t want me. It is automatic. Senator Akpabio did the same thing when he decamped to APC; he couldn’t have said he will maintain his position as a minority leader while he is in APC that has the majority”.
However, he said, “we are in cease fire period because we all agreed that we have matters of urgent national importance before the Senate and we have to get them done, place them as our priority instead of who is the Senate President. After all the Senate President if not for the abuse of the gavel, he is just one among equal. I have always been saying that the Senate President is just a presiding officer. The problem we are having is that the Senate President is trying to be senators’ president which is not the right thing. He is supposed to be the Senate President and once you are the Senate President you lose some of your rights and privileges, you even lose your voting rights unless there is tie”.
According to Ndume, our own system is a bit different and subject to abuse by people who take advantage of it. So, we will see how it goes. The tenure of every presiding officer in the National Assembly is one day. That is the rule. If Saraki survives more days, fine. But his tenure as far as we are concern he can be removed any day.
He said “in the American system, the vice president is the senate president, but he does not sit there every day. The senate president, who is the vice president normally, comes to preside when there is a voting on a critical issue. Otherwise they have what they call the Senate President plenipotentiary and then the majority leader they run the business of the Senate because the vice president is designated by their constitution as the senate president.
But in Nigeria, the case from top down, government is so personalized and privatized that the person is the position. Senate President is not suppose to be better than any senator, we are all senators, we are all equal, three from each state, whether the state is big or…..
We are not agreeing that Saraki should preside over us. Our party, APC said he should not preside over us. We are not impeaching Saraki but we are removing him. When you want to impeach somebody you serve him with his offences, but when you want to remove somebody you just tell him you don’t want him there and anybody can sit there”.
If majority of the people pass vote-of-no-confidence on Saraki, how will he preside? We have the majority, but we don’t need to impeach him; if we want we can remove him.
The constitution says if you want to impeach the President of the Senate you have to get two-third, but we are not impeaching him, we are removing him. I was removed as majority leader when some people just signed a paper and passed vote-o- no-confidence and I left. If majority says they don’t have confidence in Saraki to preside over us how can he continue? Do you need to be impeached? Does the law say you must get two-third before you pass vote-of-no-confidence on anybody?
However, Ndume said his personal position and interest is this country and the people he represents. “As long as the president of the senate will not take advantage of the gavel to sabotage or antagonize this government, I don’t have problem with him, but once he takes advantage of the gavel or the position to frustrate or embarrass President Muhammadu Buhari or the APC policies then we will fight”.
“My entire problem with Saraki has never been personal; it has been on issues and policies that I disagree. I said it before, he got it wrong, whether because he is a former governor where they run the state like their personal estate and he wants to carry that to the Senate and we have fought it and he now understands. You can’t be senators’ president because that is not what we elected you to be”, Ndume said.
On the just concluded APC primaries and the controversies that followed, Ndume said he is an advocate and supporter of direct primaries. As it gives every party member sense of belonging and chance to decide who is going to be their flag bearer. “I have been advocating for direct primaries for a long time personally, I’m one hundred percent in support of it”.