Tinubu inaccessible to lawmakers, Ndume insists

The immediate past Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume, on Monday insisted that he did not lie when he came on air to announce that President Bola Tinubu was inaccessible to lawmakers and chieftains of the All Progressives Congress.

Ndume was sacked as the chief whip last Wednesday and was immediately replaced by the Senator representing Borno North, Tahir Monguno.

His replacement by the Senate followed a directive issued to that effect in a letter written by the National Chairman of the party, Umar Ganduje and National Secretary, Senator Bashir Ajibola.

The request was put to voice votes by the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, and loudly affirmed by all the APC senators.

But the Senator disclosed when he was featured as a guest on Monday’s edition of Channels Television’s Politics Today that he made conscious efforts and wrote severally to have an audience with the President in vain.

He said, “I can tell you that one of the major issues I had that led to my removal as the Chief Whip (of the Senate) was my complaint that the President is not very accessible. If he is accessible, we would have told him this in a closed door, not on TV. But I can tell you that I made an effort for myself. I made several efforts. I wrote several times so that we can discuss some of these things. I didn’t have the chance.

“But I have no grudge now that we don’t have any communication. But definitely, we are moving forward in terms of security in one area. In other areas like Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina and Kaduna, I can’t speak much about it. But we know that the security challenges are still there, even recently. What I am saying is that security matters are a collective matter. Everybody should come out and talk about it.

“Everybody should do and say something so that we can bring it to an end. The earlier we keep on deceiving ourselves that it’s all over, we will not get control.

“But so far, I can’t say the government is not doing anything. They are investing in it. Like in my place, as I said, I can talk about Gwoza where I slept. I did not sleep with the soldiers in my house or roaming around. That means there is improvement in Gwoza.”