What Ndume will lose now that he’s no more Senate Chief Whip

• Senator Ndume will no longer be entitled to several financial privileges

• He may be ex-communicated from the inner caucus of the National Assembly

• As from 2025, he may not be able to insert projects in the Appropriation Bill

• Ndume has been punished by the Senate previously, but he was always undaunted

• His political future now hangs in the balance

By Theophilus Abbah

Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, representing Borno South Senatorial District, who was removed on Wednesday, July 17, 2024 as Senate Chief Whip, for faulting the attitude of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to the food crisis in Nigeria, will lose many privileges reserved for principal officers of the National Assembly.

There is no specific budget for the Office of the Chief Whip, unlike the Senate President and Deputy Senate President’s offices that have budgets for running them. However, the Chief Whip enjoys special treatment, and could receive benefits, much of which are not publicized, because the holder of the position is considered as one of the five who manage the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly.’

As Senate Majority Whip, Ndume had the primary responsibility of defending and promoting the interest of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Upper Chamber, and operate as a link between the ruling party and opposition parties in the Senate. Perhaps, that was why, in removing him from that position, the Senate President read a letter from the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, who claimed that Senator Ndume’s criticism of government was inimical to the interest of the party.

Beyond this responsibility towards the APC in the Senate, as Chief Whip, Senator Ndume was a member of the inner caucus of the powers in the Senate and in the National Assembly at large. This gave him the privilege of attending planning meetings, and any bills or motions taken through him to the National Assembly were prioritized.

It follows, there, that if the Tinubu government, ministers, or vested interests in bills or motions provided funds to be distributed among members of the National Assembly, the Senate Chief Whip will be allocated a proportion that is higher than what other floor members of the Chamber would receive. Usually, such privileges are not in peanuts; they are in hefty cash, or deep sounding credit alerts into the accounts of principal officers of the National Assembly.

Senator Ndume was a member of the inner caucus of the powers in the Senate and in the National Assembly at large

For example, during the budget padding saga in March 2024, Senator Jarigbe Agbom-Jarigbe, alleged that some ranking senators received as much as N500 million each from the 2024 budget, but he received nothing. That demonstrates the kind of privileges that principal officers in the National Assembly enjoy. Having lost that position of Chief Whip Senator Ndume has also lost the rare entitlements for which other senators envied him.

As the Chief Whip of the Senate, Ndume was the Vice-Chairman of the Senate’s Appropriation Committee, which scrutinizes and approves the annual budget. In that position, Senator Ndume rubbed shoulders with top ministers in government. They include the ministers of finance, budget and national planning, petroleum, education, and the heads revenue generating institutions, like the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the like. In his position as Chief Whip and Vice Chairman of the Appropriation Committee, he could have projects that will be of interest to him inserted in the budget, and negotiate jobs and employment for candidates from his constituency. The punishment meted out to him for criticizing Tinubu now prevents him from accessing all these privileges, as the new Senate Chief Whip, Senator Tahir Monguno, has assumed the position of Vice-Chairman of the Appropriation Committee.

Senator Ndume rubbed shoulders with top ministers in government

How Ndume was persecuted for standing with the weak on previous occasions:

It would not be the first time that Senator Ndume would suffer for criticizing the government and losing very important position and attendant privileges in the National Assembly. On January 10, 2017, Senator Ndume was removed as Senate Leader after Senate President Bukola Saraki read a letter purportedly from the party’s caucus, for allegedly misrepresenting the Senate when the Upper Chamber declined to confirm Malam Ibrahim Magu as the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Not only did Ndume lose the powers and juicy privileges that went with the high position of the Senate Leader, he lost out in the politics of the National Assembly. Apart from the basic salaries and allowances that accrued to every other senator, Senator Ndume’s name was deleted from the list of senators who benefitted from the largesse that gave senators the stature to carry themselves higher than other ordinary Nigerians.

The Interview on Arise TV that cost Senator Ali Ndume his position as Senate Chief Whip

The worst situation was to occur in March of 2017 when Senator Ndume was suspended from the Senate for six months for accusing Senate President Bukola Saraki and his associate Senator Dino Melaye of importing a controversial vehicle. Over the six months period all his statutory allowances were not paid to him. The irony of the situation was that Senator Ndume was part of the Like-Mind team that ferried Senator Saraki to Senate Presidency in 2015, against the will of former President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling APC. As Senate Leader, Ndume was part of the top principal officers, but he fell out with the powers-that-be and received the bitter punishment of being removed from the exalted chair and banished from the hallowed chamber for six months.

L-R: Senator Godswill Akpabio and Senator Ndume

Senator Ndume contested the 2019 Senate Presidency against the design of the APC and the preference of President Buhari for Senator Ahmed Lawan for the position. He joined the race, probably because he wanted to challenge Lawan who stepped into his position as Senate Leader in the Eight Assembly and then wanted to become Senate President in the Ninth Assembly. Though it was apparent that the party’s support for Lawan was unwavering and that Ndume would lose, Senator Ndume decided to go into the contest, regardless of the opinions expressed by diverse interests.

Senator Ndume lost the bid for the Senate Presidency. But that was just a smaller setback. He was marginalized all through that era. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Army, Ndume could not be counted among the ‘big boys’ in the Senate who had accessed to a lot of resources due to their subservience to the Senate Leadership and the juicy committee positions they held.

Perhaps, the removal of Senator Ndume as Senate Chief Whip was a tough decision for Senate President Godswill Akpabio because Ndume served as the Vice-Chairman of Akpabio’s campaign for election as Senate President. Ndume played that role against all odds, where some northern elements from the North-West insisted on disrupting the party’s decision to zone the Senate Presidency to the South-South. Before that election, Senator Ndume wanted his job as Senate Leader in the Eight Assembly back, but that went against the tradition of the Senate, where both the Senate President and Senate Leader had always emerged from the same zone. For instance, when Saraki, who hails from the North-Central, was Senate President, the Senate Leader (Ndume and later Lawan) came from the North-East. Considering this arrangement, Ndume did not get the position of Senate Leader under Akpabio’s Senate Presidency, but he was elected by the party as Senate Chief Whip.

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What political future for Ndume?

Though the National Assembly leadership has vilified Ndume for his criticism of the government, the senator’s position aligns with the yearnings of the population who are pauperized by the monetary and fiscal measures taken by this government. Without conducting the risk analysis to identify the implications of the policies, Tinubu removed the subsidy on petroleum products and devalued the Naira to a third of what he met in May 2023. The excuse that the previous government under Muhammadu Buhari left subsidy removal as a time-bomb that exploded as he departed is not acceptable by the people who are the receiving end of the maddening inflationary trend that has eroded both income and saving, and leaves the people with hopelessness. Senator Ndume’s outburst on in the media did not sit well with government, but it resonated with the people.

However, his political future is cloudy, as the APC leadership voluntarily advised him to resign from the ruling party. Senator Ndume is standing his ground, saying he would not resign, and did not regret his comments. But it is not clear what the party would do next. Previous top-ranking lawmakers who challenged the sitting government lost their bid to return to power. Former Senate President Bukola Saraki who challenged the Buhari government’s policies from 2015 to 2019 did not return to the Senate in 2019. The APC was made too hot for Saraki so he defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but he lost the Kwara Central Senatorial District seat in the 2019 election. Even his associate Dino Melaye who had represented Kogi West Senatorial District did not return to the Senate, as Melaye was seen as a critic of the Buhari administration. The late Ghali Na’abba, who was Speaker of the House of Representatives up till 2007, was a torn in the flesh of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. He entered into political oblivion at the end of his tenure.

If the APC intends to stop him from returning to the Senate in 2027, they will definitely meet a brick wall that will be difficult to pull down

Senator Ndume is very popular in the Borno South Senatorial District; he has returned to the Senate again and again. If the APC intends to stop him from returning to the Senate in 2027, they will definitely meet a brick wall that will be difficult to pull down. The APC’s decision to remove Ndume as Senate Chief Whip demonstrates to his constituency that the representative is being persecuted for taking their plight to the public and speaking truth to power. If democracy remains a game of number, Ndume will still garner the enough votes to return him to the Senate, perhaps, under any political party, even if not under the ruling APC.

I have an obligation to speak for the people – Ndume