Ndume: A leader’s garland for rebellion

The name, Mohammed Ali Ndume, means different things to different people, especially those who have followed the developments at the nation’s highest legislative body-the Senate-in the last eight years. While quite a number of senators have come and gone without making any impression worth writing about, Senator Ndume’s case is different.

His entrance into the nation’s national consciousness was without its fascinating, even if disturbing, drama as he was alleged by the State Security Services to have had links with the Boko Haram sect that has wrought unimaginable bloodletting on the psyche of deflated populace. Though the case is in court, Ndume has consistently denied the allegations levelled against him, insisting that he neither sponsored nor had any link with the deadly insurgents who continue to unleash terror in the North-East states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

Today, Ndume is a focus of media attention for another reason. In a brazen rebellion against the wishes of the leadership of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the Senator from Borno State, the hotspot of the killings, bombings and violent attacks by the members of the sect, Ndume was picked as Senate Majority Leader by the President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki.

His emergence, just like Saraki’s some few weeks past, has torn the political calculus of the APC into shreds and raised serious fundamental questions about party’s supremacy on the issues relating to key appointments. But who is Ndume and what does his emergence portend for the 8th National Assembly and the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari?

Born 55 years ago in Gwoza Local Government Area, Borno State, Ndume attended Kaduna Polytechnic and the University of Toledo, United States of America, where he earned a Masters degree in Accounting and Computer.  He became a senior lecturer in Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri, Borno State, until 2003, when he ventured into politics.

As an All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) politician then, Ndume was elected to represent Chibok/Damboa/Gwoza Federal Constituency in April 2003 and was re-elected in April 2007 on the same platform.  He was appointed Minority Leader in the House of Representatives.

As Minority Leader in the House, Ndume was a vocal critic of the then ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as he was always heaping the blame for the country’s woes on the party’s bumbling leadership. For example, he said in an August 2010 interview: “The PDP in the last 11 years has vandalised Nigeria; they have only introduced kidnapping, assassination, militancy, armed robbery, power degeneration and widespread religious crisis.”

It was, however, a twist of irony that Ndume defected to the PDP, the same party he was criticising in December 2010. He cited alleged injustices going on in the party as his reason for leaving the ANPP.

To further justify his defection to PDP, he claimed the people from the grassroots of Southern Borno were solidly behind him and his action. Ndume claimed that he was not being given a level- playing field in the competition with other ANPP aspirants for the candidature in the Senate election.

Sources close to the intricate political game playing out in Borno then explained that Ndume’s defection to PDP was mainly due to the sour relationship with the then leader of the ANPP in the state, Governor Ali Modu Sheriff. His defection to the PDP was seen by observers as a major blow to the ANPP. Ndume was considered the major financer of ANPP in Borno-South senatorial zone, and was considered one of the most dynamic of the lawmakers from the northeast zone. Following his defection, the PDP re-opened the sale of nomination forms. Alhaji Sanda Garba, who had been the only aspirant for the South Borno Senate seat, stepped down to pave the way for Ndume as the PDP candidate.

In the election, Ndume was declared winner with 146,403 votes, ahead of Dr. Asaba Vilita Bashir of the ANPP with 133,734 votes and Alhaji Unaru Ibrahim of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) with 20,414 votes.  That marked the beginning of Ndume’s romance with a party he once vilified with a rare vigour and passion.

Perhaps, one development that shook Ndume was his alleged links with the terror group, Boko Haram. Before the accusation, Ndume was an ardent canvasser and apostle of dialogue with the sect.  Apparently on the basis of his position for dialogue with the Islamic fundamentalist sect, Ndume was appointed to a committee constituted by former President Goodluck Jonathan to consider opening talks with the Boko Haram insurgents.

Ndume was, before the appointment, consistent that a military approach would not be effective to deal with the Boko Haram issue due to the impossibility of identifying the target.  It was his view that Boko Haram violence would continue until the group felt they had been heard and probably saw that the problems of poverty and unemployment, especially in North East zone, were being substantially addressed.

Surprisingly, in November 2011, the senator was alleged to have links with Boko Haram.  The alleged connection to Boko Haram was made following the Nigerian State Security Service’s alleged interrogation of a suspected Boko Haram member and spokesman, Mallam Ali Konduga.  It was reported on  November 21, 2011 that Ndume had been picked up by security agents for interrogation. He was later released on bail on self-recognition.

He was later charged and arraigned on December 12, 2013 on a four-count charge by the Department of State Services (DSS). He was accused of sponsoring the Boko Haram sect and failing to provide information about the sect’s operations. The controversial trial is still ongoing.  Ndume was quoted to have said at a time that “Everyone is looking for scapegoats instead of solutions”, apparently in reference to his trial.

In January 12, 2014, Ndume pointedly accused the military authorities of trying to kill him, claiming that he escaped death by the whiskers in an ambush meant for the Boko Haram terrorists in Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno State. He said a Nigerian Air Force jet allegedly mistook his convoy for those of the Boko Haram terrorists and threw explosives at it.

But NAF authorities promptly claimed that the jet mistakenly fired shots at the convoy while on a hot pursuit of some Boko Haram suspects who were operating in the area at the time Ndume was passing.

Moving with the political tide during the merger of forces to give the PDP a run for the presidential slot in 2015, Ndume, again in company with other Senators from Borno State, defected from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to actualise his desire to return to the Senate.

He won his election in the March 29, 2015 National Assembly polls. He quickly began to show more than a passing interest in the Senate Presidency.  Ndume quickly aligned himself with a group of Senators who tagged themselves “Senators of Like Minds”, principally formed by Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki, to actualise his (Saraki’s) Senate Presidency.

Ndume was among the North East Senators who disowned Senator Ahmed Lawan’s endorsement by the zone.  He criticised what he called “the overzealousness of Ahmed Lawan,” and insisted that Lawan was unlikely to emerge Senate President.

On June 9th at the inauguration of the 8th Senate, Ndume stood as the Rock of Gibraltar in the Senate chamber to give support to the emergence of Senator Saraki in disobedience to the APC leadership directive. He was later the same day nominated to run for the position of Deputy President of the Senate, but he defeated by Senator Ike Ekweremadu, a PDP Senator from Enugu West.

On Thursday, Saraki announced Ndume as the Senate Majority Leader, again, in total disregard to APC leadership’s instruction that Lawan should be made the Senate Majority Leader. Ndume was said to have been nominated and endorsed for the position by the North East APC Senate caucus.

Political observers see his emergence as the prize for the brazen way the Senators of “Like Minds” stood against the wishes of the leadership of the APC to nominate its preferred candidates for the top positions in the National Assembly. This set of politicians not only worked against the realisation of the wishes of the party but also went into an unholy alliance with senators in the opposition PDP, which culminated in the election of Ekweremadu as Deputy Senate President.

Ndume’s nomination and subsequent confirmation by Saraki as Majority Leader is, therefore, being read as his epaulette for the treachery and damning rebellion that signpost ominous consequences.