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Fred Itua, Abuja
The Senate has abandoned a motion seeking to pass a vote of confidence in the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan.
Despite its refusal to offer any explanation for jettisoning the motion, Daily Sun, however, learnt that a number of the 36 senators whose names were published on yesterday’s Order Paper as sponsors of the motion said they were never consulted by the arrowheads of the confidence vote project.
A senator from the North East whose name appeared as one of the sponsors of the motion, told newsmen that he was shocked to have found his name on the list.
“I don’t know why those seeking emergency image laundering for the leadership have to resort to this. Like many others whose names you saw on the Order Paper, I don’t know about anything relating to Vote of confidence on anybody. We have individually expressed our concerns to those packaging the project and I am sure that this is why they have agreed to stand it down,” he said.
Puncturing the vote of confidence motion, another lawmaker said it was put together to douse the mounting criticisms against what he called discriminatory and lopsided distribution of constituency projects in the just approved 2020 budget.
“The question you should ask is ‘why passing a vote of confidence on the leadership at this time? Why the rush? Has the leadership done anything wrong since it was put in place in June, 2019 that it required the vote of confidence as solidarity measure?”
About 1pm when the motion was dropped, the Red Chamber was already empty, as many senators had already left.
Deputy Whip of the Senate, Abdullahi Sabi Aliu, without offering any explanation, moved a motion that the vote of confidence motion be stood down till the next legislative day.
It was seconded by Philip Aduda and was so adopted. Abdullahi acted as Senate Leader, while Aduda stood on for the Minority Leader of the Senate.
Sponsored by the immediate past governor of Borno State, Shettima Kashim, the vote of confidence motion had 35 other senators as co-sponsors, including Lawan’s opponents in the June 11, 2019 Senate Presidency election, Aliu Ndume, as well as Danjuma Goje, who had withdrawn from the race a few days to that election.
