The All Progressives Congress (APC) said it has accepted the apology of the former Senate Chief Whip and Senator representing Borno South, Mohammed Ali Ndume, for openly criticising the leadership style of President Bola Tinubu and the ruling party in the face of high cost of living and attendant food crisis and economic hardship in the country.
Ndume was consequently stripped of his Senate principal position for daring to tell truth to power on a TV interview recently.
LEADERSHIP reports that the Senate at a July 17 plenary sacked Ndume as its Chief Whip and replaced him with Senator Mohammed Tahir Monguno (Borno North) sequel to a letter jointly endorsed by the APC national chairman, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje, and the party’s national secretary, Bashir Ajibola, in that regard.
However, addressing journalists after a meeting of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) and the lawmaker in Abuja on Tuesday, Ganduje said the party’s administrative organ would be writing to the Senate over the outcome of the interface with the ‘erring’ lawmaker for the Red Chamber to review its earlier position on him.
The APC national chairman said: “We are quite satisfied with his apology like he said, we invited him and you know the party is the father of everybody. As a party, we are free to invite legislators, we are free to invite members of the executive, and we are even free to invite all the appointed party members in the government.
“So, that is why we decided to come, it is a family issues we need to resolve it and we are writing to the National Assembly conveying what has transpired between Senator Ndume and the party and you know he apologised to the party and we convey the same issue to the National Assembly that we hope they can review their position.”
On his part, Senator Ndume insisted that he did not insult the President or say anything against the ruling party but that he only made a mistake of not talking to the party before expressing his concerns on TV and admitted his mistake of not talking to the party as a last resort.
“Yesterday I was invited by the party and here I am to discuss family matters, actually the national chairman is not just a national chairman to me but father. With what has happened which you are all aware, it is not surprising that I am invited to hear my own side and we had family discussions and I actually accepted the mistake of not talking to the party as a last point and I promised the party that all my observations as a senior member of the family should have terminated or ended with the party.
“That is something that going forward but whatever I said or whatever I did was out of patriotism and those issues maybe said strong but they are true but then I should have talked to the party as the last bus stop.
“The President and the Senate has nothing to do with this, the President did not take offence, I didn’t insult the President, I didn’t say anything against the party but I left the party out of reaching on issues and so, please I think that is all I can say,” Ndume maintained.