Hundreds of protesters from Borno South Senatorial District have protested in Abuja, the FCT over the ‘precipitate’ removal of Mohammed Ali Ndume as the Chief Whip of the Senate.
The protesters, who stormed the FCT this morning (Wednesday July 24) commenced their peaceful march from the Unity Fountain to the National Assembly, decried the removal of the vocal Senator as Chief Whip of the Red Chamber for merely drawing the attention of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the sufferings of Nigerians.
Marching under the umbrella of the Southern Borno Development Association, the protesters defied the rains to hold the procession, according to a report by Daily Query correspondent in Abuja.
Addressing the protesters gathered for the peaceful march, leader of the association, Mohammed Ibrahim Biu said Ndume’s people had gathered “to register our displeasure over the action of the Senate with respect to our Senator, Ali Ndume.”
“He was removed from office as Senate Whip based on a complaint by the National Chairman of the APC for saying what others had been saying,” they lamented, insisting that nothing he said “was new.”
“We believe that President Tinubu, being a listening leader, has started implementing some of the advice given by Senator Ndume; that is why the new minimum wage bill was recently passed and approved by him,” he observed. “We wish to appeal to the Senate President and the Senate to reconsider this decision.
“He was occupying that position as the only position occupied by the Southern Borno Senatorial District in the National Assembly.”
Biu described Ndume as a consistent and forthright leader who had always spoken out in favour of his constituents in particular and down-trodden Nigerians in general, adding that he should be supported not vilified for always speaking and standing by the truth.
In a letter addressed to Akpabio and read on the floor of the Senate, last week, the national chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje, had called on Ndume to resign for “continuously” attacking the administration of President Tinubu.
In the letter, the national leadership of the APC asked the majority party in the Senate to replace Ndume with Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno, also a Senator from Borno, as the new Chief Whip of the Senate, a directive which the Senate President promptly complied with, as Ndume was immediately replaced through a voice vote, presided over by the President of the Senate, Senator Gdswill Akpabio.
