Labour Party has condemned Senator Ali Ndume’s removal as the Senate’s chief whip for his vociferous stand with the suffering masses, stating that speaking truth to power is now a crime.
LP said the APC and the Senate’s leadership’s actions clearly signify that ‘speaking truth to power’ is now a crime in Nigeria.
In a statement issued by the national publicity secretary of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh, the party said that the humiliation of Ndume by the Goodwill Akpabio-led Senate portrays the dictatorial inclination of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
Ndume’s crime was his bold expression of his concerns regarding the escalating cost of living and food scarcity in Nigeria and his revelation that President Bola Tinubu has chosen to play the ostrich even in the face of acute starvation in Nigeria.
He said, “The dimension this administration is taking is grave. A few months ago, Senator Abdul Ningi exposed the rot in the government, where the Senate leadership and executive collaborators allegedly padded the budget. That got him suspended and intimidated out of his lawful representative role as a senator.
“It is needless to talk about the economic crisis ongoing in Nigeria, even where a few cabal are massively enriching themselves. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently said that food inflation has risen to 40.66 percent. Similarly, the 2023 State of Food Security and Nutrition World report has it that the number of food-insecure Nigerians has also increased by 133 percent in three years. It jumped from 63.8 million between 2014 and 2016 to 148.7 million between 2020 and 2022. It is even worse at the moment.
“Even with all these glaring and scaring challenges, the government is said to have paid about N150 billion naira for a presidential jet, building roads that have no direct bearing with the economic crises in Nigeria.
“The media practitioners are recoiling into their shelves for the fear of reporting the facts about this government for the fear of emasculation and incarceration.
“What is so democratic about the party in government making decisions for an independent legislative arm on who takes up leadership role in our legislature? This is clearly a tyranny of a conspiracy against legislative autonomy. Nigeria is gradually descending into dictatorship, and we are calling on the citizens to be on an alert and put up a defence against the starvation weapon being deployed by this administration,” he said.
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