All Progressive Congress (APC) also yesterday said it had accepted the apology of former Senate Chief Whip and the senator representing Borno South, Mohammed Ali Ndume, for openly criticising the leadership style of President Bola Tinubu in the face of high cost of living and attendant food crisis and economic hardship in the country.
Ndume was stripped of his Senate principalship for ‘daring to tell truth to power’ on a TV interview recently.
The Senate had at a July 17 plenary sacked Ndume as its Chief Whip and replaced him with Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno North), sequel to a letter jointly endorsed by the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Ganduje, and the party’s national secretary, Bashir Ajibola.
However, addressing journalists after a meeting of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) and the lawmaker in Abuja yesterday, Ganduje said the party’s administrative organ would be writing to the Senate over the outcome of the interface with the ‘erring lawmaker’ for the Senate to reverse its earlier position.
Ganduje said, “We are quite satisfied with his apology. Like he said, we invited him, and you know the party is the father of everybody.
”As a party, we are free to invite legislators, we are free to invite members of the executive, and we are even free to invite all the appointed party members in the government.
“So, that is why we decided to come. It is a family issue; we need to resolve it, and we are writing to the National Assembly, conveying what has transpired between Senator Ndume and the party.
”You know he apologised to the party, and we conveyed the same issue to the National Assembly so that we can review their position.”
On his part, Senator Ndume insisted that he did neither insult the President nor say anything against the ruling party, but that he only made a ‘mistake’ of not talking to the party before expressing his concerns on TV.
Ndume admitted his mistake of not talking to the party as a last resort.
His testament: “Yesterday, I was invited to the party, and here I am to discuss family matters.
”Actually, the national chairman is not just a national chairman to me, but a father. With what has happened, which you are all aware, it is not surprising that I am invited to hear my own side.
”We had family discussions and I actually accepted the mistake of not talking to the party as a last point.
”I promised the party that all my observations as a senior member of the family should have terminated or ended with the party.
“That is something, going forward, but whatever I said or whatever I did was out of patriotism and those issues may be strong, but they are true.
”But even then, I should have talked to the party as the last bus stop.”
Ndume added, “The President and the Senate have nothing to do with this. The President did not take offence. I didn’t insult the President, I didn’t say anything against the party, but I left the party out of reach on issues, and so, please, I think that is all I can say.”
