Senate Leadership Shakeup: Ekweremadu May Be Next Says Senator Ndume

Ousted Senate Majority Leader, Senator Ali Ndume, has said the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, may be the next to lose his leadership position in the Senate.

According to PUNCH, Senator Ndume made the claim during plenary on Wednesday while decrying the way he was removed.

He said, “If today, just like that, without telling somebody and he goes out (is removed) … If it is Ndume today and he goes out, it may be, God forbid, Ekweremadu tomorrow,” he said.

Although Ndume accepted the decision of the APC lawmakers to remove him as Senate majority leader and thanked them for the opportunity giving to him, he insisted that he wasn’t given a fair hearing by the lawmakers.

He said this was more so because he had attempted to resign from the position for the sake of unity among the lawmakers thrice before his removal.

Ndume, along with Ekweremadu, who is of the Peoples Democratic Party, and Senate President Bukola Saraki had emerged as leaders of the Senate contrary to the wish of the All Progressives Congress.

His claim hints at an attempt to remove all of them. This is more so as he was replaced by Sen. Ahmed Lawan, who had been the party’s preferred candidate for Senate President.

In the wake of the shakeup of the Senate Leadership, the spokesperson of the Senate Unity Forum (SUF), a forum that canvassed for Lawan’s Presidency, Senator Kabiru Marafa (APC, Zamfara) in an interview with Daily Trust, advised the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu to decamp to the APC.

Marafa who said the emergence of Lawan has ended the storm in the Senate said the only seat remaining for the APC to clinch is the Deputy Senate President position.

“I am using this medium to call on Ekweremadu to simply decamp. Section 68(G) of the 1999 Constitution captures this. Thank God the rift between Makarfi and Sheriff’s faction has made this possible. The sitting arrangement at Senate is between majority and Minority. The party position has been fully implemented. We have forgiven Bala Ibn Na’Allah,” he said.