The Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Ali Ndume, has defended the rendition of the President Bola Tinubu campaign tune at the hallowed chamber of the National Assembly during the presentation of the 2024 budget, saying it is “not a big deal.”
Ndume stated this in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Friday.
Earlier on Wednesday, during the President’s presentation of the appropriation bill before the joint session of the National Assembly, the band delivered a rendition of the Tinubu’s campaign tune as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking on the development, Ndume said, “It is not really right, but equally it’s not a crime. Honestly, it’s not a big deal. In this country we use to pick on trivial thing.
“It’s normal. When Buhari came sometimes back, this same thing was done, “Say Baba, Say Baba Say Baba!” Why should Tinubu’s case be something a big deal. Is it now that Tinubu is president that it becomes a big deal.
“Everywhere they do that. They have this instances everywhere. Even in America that we are coming from. There was a time Donald Trump went to make a presentation. He presentated a speech -which is the tradition – to Pelosi who is the Speaker. In the front of the president, he tore the speech.”
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, has condemned the rendition of President Tinubu at the hallowed chamber.
Reacting in a statement on Wednesday, the opposition party described the incident as “extremely sacrilegious and unpardonable assault by President Tinubu and his handlers on the sensibility and Constitutional sovereignty of the Nigerian people as represented by the National Assembly.”
It noted that the National Assembly is “the symbol of the collective sovereignty of the Nigerian people which cannot be appropriated by or surrendered to any individual or cabal under any guise or circumstance whatsoever.”