Senate under Saraki has failed Nigerians – Ndume

The All Progressives Congress (APC) senator representing Borno South in the Senate, Ali Ndume, said the Senate under the leadership of Bukola Saraki had failed Nigerians.
Mr Ndume stated this while speaking at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Sunday in Abuja, adding that Mr Saraki and Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, had privatized the legislative arm of government.
“I really want to admit that we have failed in our responsibility to the people somehow; but we the members are not responsible for that.
“It is more of the responsibility of the leadership that shut down the Senate abruptly because of personal issues. It is very unfortunate.
“The Senate is the Nigerian Senate, it is not the senators’ Senate; it is not Saraki’s senate,” he said.
Mr. Ndume added that it was very unfortunate that the Nigerian National Assembly had been reduced to Messrs Saraki and Dogara.
He further added that Messrs Saraki and Dogara had privatised and personalised the Nigerian legislative arm of government which should not be the case.
“They have privatised and personalised the institution, and the reason we were elected to be there, had been relegated to the background.
“This is very unfortunate, but I want Nigerians to know that the Senate had not been shut down by the senators or members of the House of Representatives.
“The Senate was shut down by Saraki and Dogara and they should be held responsible for that,” Mr Ndume added.
The senator while expressing sadness that the Senate was yet to reconvene, stressed that the Senate must move on without Mr Saraki.
He, however, said that he had made concerted efforts to see how the Senate could reconvene, especially to consider about five matters of national importance, but without success.
According to him, the matters were abandoned by the National Assembly before it proceeded on the long recess.
“We tried everything to get the Senate President or the leadership to reconvene the Senate, but that had not been successful,” the lawmaker said.
Commenting on the recent registration of 23 more political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Ndume said, “It is the immaturity in our democracy that led to the volume of parties we have”.
“If our democracy is getting matured, it will shave the parties to a point where we will have may be two, three or four political parties.
“I am an advocate of having less than five political parties, because some of these parties are not parties actually,” he said.
He noted that some of the political parties did not have offices in Abuja and the 36 states of the federation as required by law.
“I do not know what happened to the law, and because the law that set up INEC clearly defined the procedure for forming a political party.
“The law says you must have office in each of the 774 Local Government and office in all state capitals, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT),” he said.
He noted that such office according to the law, must meet certain standard.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the recent registration of 23 more political parties by INEC had brought the total number of parties in the country to 91. (NAN)