By Dayo Davids<\/p>\n
Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, on Tuesday requested an urgent closed-door meeting of the Senate during plenary after the Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, left the chamber in anger following the hit of the gavel that ruled him out of order.<\/p>\n
Ndume (APC Borno South ), raised a point of order on alleged errors perpetrated and not addressed by the presiding Akpabio.<\/p>\n
The error referred to, by Ndume, was a motion moved by Senator Summaila Kawu (NNPP Kano South), for debate on the need for re-opening of Nigerian-Niger Border, without stating the title of his motion.<\/p>\n
Ndume, who relied on Order 51 of the Senate standing rules, requested the Senate President to allow for correction of any error made or observed in plenary.<\/p>\n
Ndume said, “This is the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria guided by laws, rules and procedures. If in the course of proceedings at any session, errors are observed, they must be corrected before forging ahead with such proceeding.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Akpabio stopped him on his tracks,\u00a0 saying having ruled on issues raised, it cannot be revisited and consequently ruled Ndume out of order.<\/p>\n
Senator Sunday Karimi (APC Kogi West), spiritedly attempted to sustain Ndume’s line of argument through another point of order but was also swiftly ruled out of order by Senate President, Godswill Akpabio.<\/p>\n
In a troubleshooting effort, the Deputy President of the Senate, Jibrin Barau, quickly rose to read order 16, which requires a substantive motion to be moved by any Senator for correction or review of the earlier decision taken.<\/p>\n
Sustaining Barau’s point of order by Akpabio, an obviously angry Ndume\u00a0 raised another point of order (order 54) to seek correction of the perceived error.<\/p>\n
But without being allowed to make a full presentation of his argument, the President of the Senate ruled him out of order again.<\/p>\n
Angered by Akpabio’s decision, Ndume packed his documents and furiously stormed out of the chamber.<\/p>\n
In what appeared a smart move to manage the situation, the Senate went into a closed door session which was still on as the the time of filing this report.<\/p>\n
By Dayo Davids Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, on Tuesday requested an urgent closed-door meeting of the Senate during plenary after the Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n