The South-East Senate Caucus Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, has revealed that he has been approached to replace the Deputy President of the Senate, Dr. Ike Ekweremadu.
There have been moves by the All Progressives Congress to replace Ekweremadu and the President of the Senate, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki.
While Saraki has defected to the Peoples Democratic Party, the issue with Ekweremadu, according to the APC, is that with the party having the majority in the Senate, it should also produce the Deputy President of the Senate.
But Abaribe, who spoke at a forum where the South East Governors faulted the implementation of projects in their zone by the Federal Government, said he turned down the officer because that was not why he and other senators of the zone were in the National Assembly.
He said: “Our major challenge in the National Assembly is the fight with the Executive arm on zonal intervention projects.”
He said the reason budgets don’t perform was the fact that “there is a mismatch of the needs of the people to what somebody else wants, just to impress somebody else”.
Abaribe said the report on projects implementation by the South East Governors’ Forum was necessary to show the world that the National Assembly members put in enough effort in oversight of the implementation of projects.
He also noted that South East senators were united on one purpose, which was reason Ekweremadu had remained as the Deputy Senate President for some time.
“I was approached to topple Ekweremadu but I told them that such was not the reason we went to Senate, to struggle for leadership,” he said.
Abaribe also challenged the state governments to first show good governance before criticising the Federal Government.
