After bringing a motion to the floor of the red chamber, amid the rising crescendo of calls for the sack of the nation’s security heads over their failure to combat the rising insecurity in the country, Senator Ali Ndume (APC-Borno) and chairman, Senate Committee on Army, has come out to distance himself from the motion that was unanimously adopted by all Senators present.
A plenary session of the Senate had adopted a resolution calling on the service chiefs to resign or be sacked due to their inability to address the multi-pronged security challenges facing the nation; for which they got a mouthful recently from President Muhammadu Buhari; who warned them that he would no longer tolerate any excuses for their lack of performance as the security situation degenerates
Ndume’s U-turn took many of his colleagues by surprise; who said his argument that he did not call for the sacking of the service chiefs was laughable and untenable, because he brought the motion to the floor. Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, subsequently ruled on the motion and it was overwhelmingly adopted by all senators in attendance. But Ndume told journalists yesterday that his original motion never called for the sacking of the service chiefs because he was aware that the armed forces were grossly ill-equipped.
Hear Ndume: “To win this war, we need number, technology and equipment, which the armed forces don’t have this. So how can you blame people that sacrifice their lives?” Informed that the Senate had amended his motion to ask the service chiefs to step aside or be fired after he left the red chamber, Ndume said the Senate resolution was merely advisory.
To which end, the presidency in a stinging rebuke in reaction to the resolution, advised the Senators to shut up and stop asking President Buhari to sack the service chiefs, because the appointment or sack of service chiefs was a prerogative of the President
A statement by the President’s Media Adviser, Femi Adesina, which said the presidency had noted the resolution, swiftly added that the President would only do what he considered to be in the interest of the country. Adesina said: “The Senate Tuesday adopted a resolution calling on the Service Chiefs to resign or be sacked due to the multi-pronged security challenges in the country.
“The Presidency notes the resolution, and reiterates that appointment or sack of Service Chiefs is a Presidential prerogative, and President Muhammadu Buhari, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, will do what is in the best interest of the country at all times.”
Meanwhile, the House caucus of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) issued a four-week ultimatum to President Buhari to provide security for Nigerians and commence proper cleaning of what it called the embarrassing corruption cases in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) or it will invoke relevant sections of the constitution and commence impeachment proceedings.
The PDP House caucus leader, Kingsley Chinda, in a statement Tuesday said there was total collapse of all governance and structural systems in the country due to bad or near absence of governance. He also said that the events of the past few weeks had shown that there was a deliberate and calculated blackmail by the Executive to ridicule the National Assembly and bring the parliament to disrepute.
