The Senate President, Bukola Saraki Wednesday, openly displayed the continuation of his hostility to Senator Ali Ndume on the floor of the Senate as he rejected a motion moved by the Borno State born Senator aimed at honouring late Senator Isiaka Adeleke.
Ndume, who was serving his six months ban from the Senate when Adeleke died, resumed plenary on Wednesday following the expiration of the ban.
Arresting the attention of his colleagues through Order 43 of the senate’s standing rules, he submitted that he was away when Adeleke died which made him not to be part of tributes and honour Senate paid the deceased then.
According to him, the late Adeleke who represented Osun West in the Senate on the platform of APC, was his landlord in the Senate chamber by virtue of his seat right behind him.
“During my seven and half months away from the Senate, a respected colleague of ours, the late Senator Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke, whose seat then was rightly behind me passed on but since I wasn’t in the senate then, I couldn’t join others in giving the late Adeleke the honours he deserved.
“I thank the senate for whatever honour might have been given the departed colleague but I want to most humbly request us to observe another minute silence in honour of the Senator whose memory struck me immediately I sat on my seat this morning looking behind my seat,” he said.
But the Senate President in his ruling sharply responded by noting Ndume’s point of order without carrying out any voice votes on his request.
Your point of order is noted,” he said and immediately called on the Senate Leader, Ahmad Lawan to proceed with the next legislative business for the day.
Ndume, it would be recalled, was suspended for bringing up an issue of alleged corruption as published on a news website against the Senate President to the attention of the Senate, asking the parliament to look into the issues raised in the report as it rubbed off negatively on the integrity of the Senate President.
However, his observations boomeranged as he was accused of raising unsubstantiated allegations against the Senate President, and placed on 90 legislative days suspension.
The suspension was declared illegal by a Federal High Court last Friday, a judgement the Senate has gone to Appeal against.
But Ndume, at a media briefing outside the chamber before heading to Saudi Arabia for lesser hajj, said he nursed no ill feeling against anybody in the Senate, more so, when a court of competent jurisdiction had ruled that the suspension slammed on him by the Senate was wrong in the eye of the law.
“I thank the Almighty Allah for seeing me through the seven and half months of being away from the senate and all those who stood by me.
“It was during that period that Senator Isiaka Adeleke died, three other senators lost their wives, three out of the 360 members of the House of Representatives died etc, but to the glory of God, nothing of such happened to those of us here not because we are better or holier than those who suffered one loss or the other. So, on what basis would one have ill feeling against anybody?
“I have forgiven those who were behind my suspension as already declared a nullity by the court of law and even as the Senate appealed against the judgement, I have nothing personal against anybody and ready to work with others in making Nigeria a better place for all,” he said.
