Emergence of senate president undemocratic –CLO

Prosper

The president, Civil Liberties Organisation, Mr. Steve Aluko, has described as undemocratic the manner the President of the 8th Senate was elected.

He said that while the manner in which leaders of the House of Representatives emerged could be described as fair and just, that of the senate was an aberration because it did not conform with the rules.

But a former member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Bitrus Kaze, described the emergence of Dr. Olusola Saraki and Mr. Yakubu Dogara as Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives as an indication that democracy had started developing in the country.

Aluko and Kaze spoke to Saturday PUNCH in Jos on Friday.

According to Aluko, disenfranchising 51 senators from having a say in who leads them in the Senate also meant denying a large chunk of their constituents the right to determine the senate leadership, adding however that it is a lesson for the ruling All Progressives Congress that the party must learn to put its house in order.

The CLO president said, “It is an unwelcome development because the vote of 51 senators is a big figure that cannot be brushed aside. That of the House of Representatives was better because there was the beauty of contest, which is part of the tenets of democracy, but that of the Senate, you cannot wish away the votes of 51 senators representing a large chunk of constituencies in Nigeria.”
Source: PUNCH