I remain Nigeria’s Senate Leader, Ndume insists

Senator Ali Ndume, the senator representing Borno South in the Senate on Tuesday, insisted that he remained the Senate Leader.

This is sequel to the letter delivered to the Senate by the Caucus of the All Progressives Congress party, APC, sacking Ndume and replacing him with Senator Ahmed Lawan as the Leader.

However, Ndume was quoted to have said that he remains the senate leader. “I still remain Senate Leader,” he said at a press briefing.

He said he was unaware of his removal by the APC Senate Caucus. Senate President Senator Bukola Saraki read a letter from APC caucus on the change in the Senate leadership.

Sen. Ndume Lawan was the choice of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu group for the Senate presidency in 2015.  But on the day the Senate convened for its first plenary, Saraki, with the support of the minority PDP caucus seized control and took over the leadership.

Lawan was not even around to contest the seat, as he was held up at the International Conference Centre for a meeting,  that never held, with President Muhammadu Buhari.

Saraki’s emergence created divisions in the APC.

The crisis was accentuated when he refused to adopt Lawan and some other nominees of the party sent by the party leadership for various positions.

In the blowout, Saraki himself was almost consumed as he and his deputy faced a charge of forging the senate rules.

He also faced a charge at the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

Lawan represents Yobe north in the Senate.

He will be 58 years old on Thursday.

He was educated at  Sabon Gari Primary School in Gashua and also Gashua Government Secondary School, where he graduated in 1979.

He then went to University of Maiduguri and Ahmadu Bello University, in Zaria. And later Cranfield University in the United Kingdom.