*Ekweremadu
By Dan Amor
We must get the record straight. As Senator Ken Nnamani, the last President of the Fifth Senate and one of the finest legislative minds in the country has asserted, the floor of any chamber of the Nigerian bi-camera legislature is not a party secretariat. So, those calling for the resignation of Senator Ike Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President are enemies of our democracy.
President Muhammadu Buhari was recently quoted as saying that the
emergence of Senator Ike Ekweremadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as
Deputy Senate President was unacceptable to him and his party, the ruling All
Progressives Congress (APC). "I cannot work with enemies of my party—
Buhari,” so goes the
headline, whatever that means. This position of the President was followed by the
alleged invitation of Ekweremadu by the police to be quizzed over the alleged
doctoring of the Senate Rules to facilitate his election as Deputy Senate
President. It is like the fable of the owl crying in the night and the child
dying the following morning.
The reported invasion of the hallowed chamber of the Senate by the
police ostensibly to question the Clerk is outrageous, to say the least and
must be condemned by all Nigerians who fought the military to a standstill to
bring about the current democratic dispensation in 1999.
