Victor Ezeja
AdminThe Senate had a rowdy plenary on Tuesday as its President, Godswill Akpabio was accused of sidelining the Labour Party (LP) in the leadership of the upper legislative chambers. This followed his announcement of Senator Osita Ngwu representing Enugu West as the new Senate Minority Whip.
Ngwu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was named as the minority leader by Akpabio, a development that did not go down well with LP senators. They even had to step out of the chambers at some point to confer amongst themselves.
Sen. Okechukwu Ezea from Enugu North first rose to fault the nomination. He was backed by Sen. Tony Nwoye of the LP who equally rose to challenge the ceding of three slots of the minority leadership to the PDP, leaving the Labour Party with no representation in the Senate leadership.
Nwoye asked: “Are we your slaves? The way you were elected was the way we were elected. Every time you keep on picking leadership for us. We are not your slaves. The way you were elected was the way I was elected. How you can suspend me. You have done your worst. You have pushed us to the wall.”
All efforts to get Nwoye to calm down failed as he kept tackling Akpabio and calling his bluff that he could not suspend him because both emerged as Senators through the same process of election.
After the heated argument, the Senate President took the majority decision who had voted in favour of the PDP for the Senate Minority Whip. He maintained that the new minority leaders had the majority support of their colleagues in the opposition.
Similarly, Senator Abba Moro, the lawmaker from Benue South, emerged as Senate Minority leader after an Appeal Court sacked the former occupant of the position, Simon Nwadkwon, the lawmaker from Plateau State whose election was recently voided.
According to Akpabio, forty one minority senators signed the document endorsing Moro as minority leader while 30 backed Ngwu for the minority whip seat.
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