Ndume’s Fate Still Hangs In The Balance – Saraki

BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – Except current political permutations and behind-the-scene maneuvers change and quickly too, suspended former Majority Leader of the Senate, Mohammed Ali Ndume, may likely face stiffer sanctions by the Senate.
This is even as the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, believed to have drawn the battle line against Ndume, declared on Monday that the fate of Senator Ndume with regards to a possible reversal of his suspension lies strictly with the Senate.
Saraki told State House correspondents in Abuja after meeting behind closed doors with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, that the Senate as an institution is the only body that can determine the fate of Ndume.
It was gathered that part of the plan is to strip Ndume of Chairmanship of committee and ensure that he is kept ‘shut’ by not being recognize to speak on the floor of the Senate throughout the remaining period in the life of the 8th session of the National Assembly which terminates in June 2019, except if Saraki ceases to remain as President of the Senate.
Saraki, who met with Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State at the weekend over the same issue, is believed to have been irked by the level of betrayal by Ndume, who he perceives as trying to pull the rug off his feet in spite of how he (Saraki) stood for his interest against that of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a decision that has pitched him against the governing party and the presidency.
Governor Kashim led a concise delegation to Saraki to plead with him to forgive the sins of betrayal of Ndume and accept him back as a colleague and political friend.
Forefront gathered that Senator Ndume was equally advised to stop or in the main time put a hold on the sponsorship of some Non-government organisations masquerading as civil society groups to drum support for him by castigating the Senate over his suspension which most Senators described as well-deserved and long overdue. A political solution, he was told, would be better adopted as a means of resolving his current travail.
Senators are believed to have a consensus of opinion that never did the Senate since the 2nd and 4th republics witness where its own Leader went against collective positions publicly even in decisions he guided and led the Senate to take.
Ndume is believed to have felt so bitter when he was removed from office as Senate Majority Leader in what looked like a palace coup without his having inkling as to what was to befall him.
Ndume, who tried hard to fight back to retain his position which he is known to so value, had no choice than to accept his removal the following day.
Since then, there has been no love lost between him and Saraki as well as some other Senators he presumed participated in the coup that ousted him.