Atiku: Senate enabling executive recklessness with Ndume’s removal as chief whip

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar says the national assembly is becoming an “enabler of executive recklessness”.

In a post on X on Thursday, Abubakar condemned the removal of Ali Ndume, senator representing Borno south, as the chief whip of the senate.

On Wednesday, Tahir Monguno, senator representing Borno north, took Ndume’s position following a request by Abdullahi Ganduje, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and Ajibola Basiru, national secretary of the party.

Ndume has been critical of the government over the state of the nation with his recent claim that the administration of President Bola Tinubu is populated by kleptocrats.

Reacting to Ndume’s removal as the senate chief whip, the former vice-president alleged the Tinubu-led administration is clamping down on people speaking truth to power.

“In the evolution of systems of government, a major concern for thinkers was a governmental framework that will reduce the highhandedness of the executive arm of government,” he wrote.

“It was thought, and rightly so too, that a participatory approach to governance, such that will make the government derive its legitimacy from the people will better serve the interest of the masses.

“And thus, to make sure that the executive does not go overboard in the application of its powers, the legislative arm of government was conceived as a means of protecting the people from the authoritarian tendencies of wielders of state powers.

“Regrettably, however, the democracy in Nigeria in the current administration of President Bola Tinubu has become an anathema to that general principle of democracy as providing primary protection for the people against executive excesses.

“This ugly tendency is being manifested by the steady posturing of our National Assembly, especially the Senate, of taking a reverse course in its core function and becoming a puppet in the hands of the President.

“It is uncharitable that whenever members of the Senate stand on the floor of the red chamber to perform their statutory duty of calling the executive to order, they are immediately reprimanded for so doing.

“When Senator Abdul Ningi called attention of the country to the incident of budget padding in the 2024 Appropriation bill, rather than calling for a thorough investigation into the observation, the reaction of the Senate was to hand him a suspension.

“Today, the people of Nigeria are victims of ambiguous budget framework upon which appropriations for the current fiscal year are hinged in the face of a multiplicity of appropriations.

“Only yesterday, Senator Ali Ndume called for the President to wake up to his responsibilities and provide succour to address the biting hunger and poverty in the country. Ironically, the response of the senate to his patriotic warning is to relieve him of his principal office as the Chief Whip of the Senate.

“Also, despite persistent solicitations that government put its priorities on cancelling the excruciating hardship in the land and suspend the idea of spending scarce resources on the purchase of new aircraft for the presidential fleet, the Senate took a stand against the people and ignored the voices of altruism by decorating the President with controversial purchases of an aircraft and a yacht amidst the worst material conditions of the average citizen in the history of our country.

“We are, therefore, beginning to see a pattern in which the National Assembly has become an enabler of executive recklessness, and the concerns of the people stand in the nadir of priority list of the legislature. This emerging reality must stop.”

Abubakar said the nation’s democracy is being “compromised” by an “unholy alliance” between the executive and the legislature and “portends a dictatorship that will worsen a lot of the people”.