Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu
The Peoples Democratic Party on Wednesday asked the ruling All Progressives Congress to stop chasing shadows and concentrate on governance.
It also said the plot by the APC to remove the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, “is an enterprise in futility.”
The Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Abdulahi Jalo, said this in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Abuja.
He advised the APC to stop chasing shadows and concentrate on providing the services they promised to provide for Nigerians during campaign.
He said the PDP should not be blamed for the decision of the ruling APC, to call for a meeting outside of the National Assembly Complex on the morning of the inauguration.
According to him, politics is a game of numbers, as such, even in the general elections, the electoral umpire cannot be blamed for the refusal or failure of voters to turn up to exercise their franchise on election day.
Jalo said, “Those seeking to harass, intimidate or trying to remove Senator (Ike) Ekweremadu from the position of Deputy Senate President, are engaging in what we call an enterprise in futility because he was validly elected by his colleagues as stipulated in their rules.
“On the allegation that the rules were illegally amended, the question Nigerians should ask is, is it possible for one man to change the rules one hour to the inauguration? Where was the amendment printed?
“The little I know about the Senate is this: when every senator is sworn in, he is given a copy of the Senate Rule Book and the constitution, who prepares the document or how it is prepared is not the business of the senators.”
He described the recent police invitation of the Deputy Senate President as the height of the ruling party’s desperation to force Ekweremadu out of office.
Jalo further explained that to the best of his knowledge, Ekweremadu, who is also a lawyer, would not take any action that runs contrary to the PDP’s respect for the rule of law.
He also said the APC “is now slowly coming to terms with the reality that governance goes beyond rhetoric.”
According to him, the PDP was going through a temporary setback and would bounce back stronger sooner than its detractors envisaged.
In response, the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the party’s position as contained in an earlier press release on the issue had not changed.
He had in the statement issued on Sunday, July 5, 2015 said, “President Muhammadu Buhari has repeatedly said that at every point, the law must be supreme and everyone must respect the law, if the nation’s democratic system is to survive.
“Extrapolating a police invitation of anyone, no matter his status, to mean the onset of dictatorship, is itself an invitation to lawlessness and anarchy, which permeated the long but ineffective rule of the PDP.”
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