Untouchable Akpabio, Ndume and the docile senators

It goes without saying that Akpabio is wielding immeasurable power in the red chamber. I say this following the sack of Senator Ndume. The Senate chief whip and the vice-chairman of the appropriation committee. These positions were rewards for his effort to make Akpabio the Senate leader. The Senate Chief Whip is a senior official […]

It goes without saying that Akpabio is wielding immeasurable power in the red chamber. I say this following the sack of Senator Ndume. The Senate chief whip and the vice-chairman of the appropriation committee. These positions were rewards for his effort to make Akpabio the Senate leader.

The Senate Chief Whip is a senior official who ensures party discipline and manages the legislative agenda. He coordinates members, ensures attendance, and directs votes. He also acts as a liaison between party leaders and members.

I feel the Senate leadership is becoming more dictatorial. They are increasingly becoming intolerant of in-house criticism of their own affairs. Their action has forced Senators to remain docile. Not even the opposition senators, who should be advocating for good governance. Even Ndume himself could not challenge it. After all, he was advocating for improved welfare of Nigerians.

In his press conference, he maintained his position that people are suffering and cautioned that the N70,000 minimum wage agreement is insufficient. He also reminded us how he worked against a fellow northerner to make Akpabio the Senate President. Of course, he got compensated.

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He specifically called on Tinubu to remember how open he was before he became the president. He referred to calling out Tinubu to act responsibly as an act of patriotism. He thought doing otherwise was unpatriotic.

Ndume is a man I have learnt from, especially when it comes to highlighting the wrongdoings of the APC government. I feel he still holds the ideology of PDP—social democracy. On two occasions, he raised the issue of uneven disbursement of the N500 billion loan to the six geopolitical zones by the Development Bank of Nigeria.

Like many of his speeches his position on subsidy removal of electricity was sound. He suggested that the Minister should have brought the proposal to the National Assembly for advice instead of acting unilaterally. If only he had tabled a motion against it. Doing so would have been an act of patriotism.

I first heard the term “Lagos Boys” from him, which I went on to use as if it were my own. This was when he was standing against moving CBN departments to Lagos. Before then, he was vocal against the 2024 budget. He was the first to highlight that the northern states were shortchanged in the 2024 projects. To be honest, Ndume’s media chats and plenary sessions can be quite educational.

In short, Senator Ndume is a decent motivational speaker. He knows how to sell ideas. His speeches align with social democracy—helping his constituents and his region. On the contrary, when it comes to practising what he preaches—holding government and individuals to account—he ends up towing the party line.

Some of us wish he had used his position as Chief Whip to protect minorities, like the suspension of Senator Ningi. Other examples include whipping the Senate to rubber-stamp the budgets that shortchanged his region and to approve loans for fuel subsidy removal, among many others. Working to stop these would have been an act of patriotism. Maybe his actions would have kept him as the Chief Whip, as his cheap talk failed to do so.

The disturbing part of allowing Ndume’s sack to go uncontested is that Akpabio’s power will become absolute. Senator Oshiomhole could only sit on the fence, and when pressed by a TV pundit, he said Ndume’s sacking was done by a competent Senate and left it there.

But this is not the first time. A few months ago, we saw how Senator Jarigbe, from Cross-River North, abandoned a live TV interview in an attempt to avoid “wahala” when probed about the 2024 budget. All these come under the fear of consequences from Akpabio, a man clearly intolerant of criticism.

We have witnessed how he talked down on Senator Ireti Kingibe following her disagreements with Wike, the FCT Minister. He advised Wike to ignore every distraction and that once a decision is taken, she is bound by it.

A recent video shows Akpabio making a sexist comment to a female counterpart from Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan. Akpabio says that the Red Chamber is not a “nightclub.” Akpabio’s comment is uncultured, patronising, and a bad way of gender stereotyping.

Unsurprisingly, Nigerians took interest in this event, knowing that the Senators would be docile. The public response forced him to come down on his high-horse to apologise. If Natasha had lodged a formal complaint in the Senate, despite his apology, there would have been public pressure for him to resign.

But this is just blue-sky-thinking. She won’t dare; Nigeria is not ethically stringent. She may even get punished for standing up for raising a point of order against him.

As things stand, Akpabio has rendered the senators too docile to challenge his authority. The senators are afraid of any sort of wahala as it will lead to suspensions or resignations from “juicy positions.” Similarly, the attraction to material gains makes them lack the courage to stand up against such behaviour.