■ Opens up on how caucuses elected leaders
■ Urges Marafa to stop relying on godfathers
Less than 24 hours after the Senate Unity Forum called for the sack of Senate Leader, Ali Ndume and his deputy, Senator Bala Na’Allah, the Senator from the North-east has fired back.
In this interview, Senator Na’Allah told the Forum’s spokesperson, Senator Kabir Marafa to shut up as he is ignorant of parliamentary and party rules guiding appointive posts. Yesterday, as reported by the media, Marafa had asked Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki to reverse the appointment of Senate Leader Ali Ndume and Na’Allah. Senator Marafa said the appointments of Ndume and Na’Allah violated Rule 3 (2) of the Senate Standing Orders, which clearly stipulate ranking in the chamber.
The Forum also reiterated that both men were not qualified to hold office by effect of the ranking rule and also insisted that the rules used to inaugurate the Eighth Senate were forged.
In a swift reaction, however, Senator Na’Allah said Marafa, whom he described as his “friend and brother” spoke “on the platform of lack of sufficient knowledge of parliamentary procedures.”
Na’Allah buttressing his point, queried: “If all ranking senators were from Katsina State, President Muhammadu Buhari’s hometown, would they all be allowed to emerge as principal officers?
He continued: “Wherein lies the wisdom of giving them all principal officers of the Senate when they have the president from the state?”
Specifically addressing Marafa on the chairman and secretary of the North West and North East caucuses, which chose the Senate Leader and his deputy, Na’Allah said party caucuses in parliament do not have secretaries.
He said in the case of the North West, what the APC caucuses took into account before arriving at what they did were the following: (1) The president is from Katsina State and the deputy national chairman of the party, Senator Lawali Shuaibu, is from Zamfara State. The zonal vice chairman, Barrister Abdulkadiri Magatarkada is from Sokoto State. So, the deputy leader was zoned to Kano and Kebbi State of which Senator Adamu Aliero and Senator Gaya were the contenders but the caucus, on its own, suggested that because Na’Allah is a lawyer, he would be of more use to the party.”
“And so, 14, out of 20 APC Senators voted for me. Senator Rabi’u Kwankwaso was out of the country by then. Three other Senators stayed out of the caucus meeting on that day, including Marafa.
“As for the North east, 10 out of the 12 APC Senators voted for Ndume and that is the basis for the letter written to the Senate President by the caucuses of the party, nominating us as principal officers. “When the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria wanted to be president, he passed through the normal democratic process and we expected that every loyal APC member in seeking any elective position should be humble enough to submit himself to the democratic process because that’s the change we’ve promised Nigerians…”
Commenting on Marafa’s remark that the party is greater than parliamentary caucuses, Na’Allah said: “If the party is greater than the caucuses, wherein lies the wisdom of organising a straw poll between Senator Ahmad Lawan and Senator Bukola Saraki.
He continued: “The party should just have nominated one and said we should just follow. A party can only exercise its supremacy in two ways: (1) either to invoke the powers conferred on it by the party’s constitution or (2) to persuasively and democratically arrive at a decision based on its constitution.
“I challenge Senator Marafa to show me anywhere in the constitution of the APC, where the powers to select principal officers of the Senate and that of the House of Representatives is conferred on any organ of the party and I’m sure he’s educated enough to understand that for any power that is exercised outside the party constitution and outside democratic process, the party would have no moral basis to enforce it.”
Na’Allah urged Marafa to submit himself to the democratic process rather than rely on godfathers within the party to get leadership positions.
“If anybody doesn’t want to pass through the democratic process and believes that he would want to lead people by the mere expedience of who the godfathers are, then, he should redefine the meaning of his own change but the change we promised Nigerians is that we will make is a fully democratic society.”
