Ndume accuses Akpabio who boasts, “we will rubber-stamp [Tinubu’s wishes] in the national interest”
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
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“It has become less democratic, and it’s very unfortunate …. The Senate particularly is supposed to be a house of deliberation where people will deliberate on policies, actions and spending of government.
“We’re not doing that anymore; we’re now more of an approving institution, just giving necessary and unnecessary support to the executive.
“The division of executive, legislature and judiciary is no longer there; government, to an extent, now has been personalised and privatised” – Ndume.
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Senator Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) has latched on to Godswill Akpabio’s public boast that “we will rubber-stamp [President Bola Tinubu’s wishes] in the national interest” to accuse the Senate President of having turned the Senate and National Assembly (NASS) from a house of deliberations to an approving institution.
Akpabio recently made the boast in the Senate in reaction to public outcry that the 10th NASS under him lacks effectiveness and is a mere extension of Aso Rock, approving everything Tinubu wants, instead of performing its oversight role on the executive.
Ndume expressed sadness at the diminishing role of the NASS, saying it has become an approving institution offering unquestioned support to the executive and lamented that the Senate no longer fulfils its duty as a deliberative Chamber.
He bared his mind in an interview on Arise Television.
“It has become less democratic, and it’s very unfortunate. If you look at what the National Assembly historically is built on, the Senate particularly is supposed to be a house of deliberation where people will deliberate on policies, actions and spending of government,” Ndume said.
“We’re not doing that anymore; we’re now more of an approving institution, just giving necessary and unnecessary support to the executive.
“The division of executive, legislature and judiciary is no longer there; government, to an extent, now has been personalised and privatised.”
Ndume also expressed concern that as a Senator, he is not abreast of events in the Chamber.
At the African regional level, he described the withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from ECOWAS as a major diplomatic failure, particularly for Tinubu, who recently handed over leadership of the bloc to Sierra Leonean President Julius Bio.
He said the intervention of elder statesmen like Muhammadu Buhari, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Yakubu Gowon, and Abdulsalami Abubakar might have helped prevent the exit of the three West African countries.
Gowon was one of the founders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 1975 when he was Nigeria’s military Head of State.
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