The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), United States of America (USA) has called on the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio to resign over his alleged lackluster handling of the affairs of the upper chamber.
The Coalition claimed that Akpabio, who was planted as the Senate President by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has completely subjugated his colleagues under the executive and eroded the independence and integrity of the legislature in Nigeria.
The Executive Director of NADECO USA, Mr. Lloyd Ukwu, in a statement issued on Tuesday, accused Akpabio of showing absolute disdain for the Standing Rules of the Senate as regards the order of proceedings, vibrant debates during plenary and thorough scrutiny of executive communications and bills.
To this end, Ukwu called on Senators to urgently commence impeachment proceedings against Akpabio “for making the upper chamber a laughing stock through naivety, immaturity and eagerness to please the executive, irrespective of the repercussions of his actions on the Senate as an institution and democratic governance in Nigeria.”
He said: “Akpabio is fond of keeping communications from the President which are supposed to be read during announcement time till the end of plenary, like he recently did when he announced the last three ministerial nominees by the President towards the tail end of plenary.
“Only recently, the Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (APC – Borno South) and Senator Mohammed Ogoshi Onawo (SDP – Nasarawa South) openly accused Akpabio of not giving senators adequate opportunity to interrogate and scrutinize bills, especially money bills, and warned that history would judge him for approving executive requests and passing important legislations posthaste.”
Ukwu insisted that should Akpabio fail to resign or Senators fail to impeach him, NADECO USA would have no option than to mobilize its members in the USA and Nigerians in diaspora for a mass action to ensure that he vacates office.