The All Progressives Congress (APC) members of the Senate have removed Ali Ndume as their leader.
The development was conveyed by Senate President Bukola Saraki who read a letter sent to him by the caucus.
The caucus elected to replace Ndume with Ahmed Lawan, their letter read by Saraki said.
The development sets ground for effective removal of Ndume as Senate Leader.
Addressing journalists after the Senate’s plenary, Ndume said the decision of the caucus to remove him as leader “shocked him”.
He said he was oblivious of what led to the decision or where the meeting was held to remove him.
Ndume’s predicament may be connected with the indictment of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, and the rejection of Ibrahim Magu as EFCC Chairman by the Senate.
Ndume had claimed the Senate neither rejected nor indicted the officials, prompting a counter reaction by the Senate’s spokesperson, Aliyu Abdullahi.
Following the decision of the APC caucus to effect leadership change, Mr. Saraki may announce Mr. Lawan as the new Senate Leader at the next sitting of the legislators.
It would be recalled that Ndume was appointed to a committee established by President Goodluck Jonathan to consider opening talks with Boko Haram.
He said that a military approach would not be effective due to the impossibility of identifying the target.
In his view the violence would continue until the group felt they had been heard and saw that the problems of poverty and unemployment were being addressed.
In November 2011, Senator Ndume was reported to be linked to Boko Haram.
This alleged connection to Boko Haram was made following the Nigerian State Security Service’s interrogation of a suspected Boko Haram member and spokesman, Mallam Ali Konduga.
But this is ironical as he was mandated by government to reach out to boko haram members and that was exactly what he was doing as the boko haram suspect whom he was alleged to be having contact with was Boko haram’s spokesman, how can you reach out to boko haram if not through their spokesman?
On 21 November 2011 Leadership (Abuja) reported that Ndume had been arrested on trumped up charges of terrorism.
It was later discovered that the former governor of Borno State Ali Modu Sheriff whom he earlier had political disagreements with has a hand in his ordeal, sources confirmed that Ali Modu Sheriff swore to deal with him, albeit this is it.
