Kwara senator in trouble for kneeling before Saraki

The Kwara South Unity Forum (KSUF) has initiated a recall process against Senator Rafiu Ibrahim representing the Kwara South Senatorial District.

The petition has been sent to the Independent National Electoral Commission and the office of the President of the Senate.

According to the group, the letter, dated November 13, was received and acknowledged at INEC on November 14 and the office of the President of the Senate on November 17.

While the forum was addressing journalists at Ofa on the recall, some thugs descended on the venue and disrupted the briefing.

The General Secretary of the KSUF, Ahmed Akorede, said the members of the group had been receiving threat messages, for discharging their “human right and constitutional” responsibility.

The group’s President John Adegboye told journalists at Ijagbo in the Oyun Local Government Area of Kwara State, that Ibrahim has been representing them poorly.

Adegboye also accused Ibrahim of disregarding members and elders of the senatorial district while taking directives from external personalities.

“A situation whereby, a man we voted for, now comes out openly and with audacity, to state that he needs to consult ‘his boss’, who isn’t even from Kwara South, is nothing but a violation of our human and democratic rights,” he said.

Adegboye said it was wrong for Ibrahim to have knelt down before Senate President Bukola Saraki.

“We find it demeaning, insulting and outrageous that our senator acted as an escort and body guard to the wife of the Senate President when she was arraigned in court on charges of money laundering by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,” he said.

“This unnecessary show of subservience has been interpreted to imply a situation in which we are not the people in control of our destinies. We cannot accept this anymore.

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“It is therefore under these circumstances that the good people of Kwara South today decide to intimate the generality of Nigerians about our intention to recall Senator Rafiu Ibrahim from the 8th National Assembly.

“We affirm that the Kwara South Unity Forum has instituted recall proceedings against the senator representing Kwara South Senatorial District. The days of ‘shadow democracy and indirect rule,’ whereby a few individuals become more important than the entire electorate, are over.”

But a coalition of students, during another media briefing, passed a vote of confidence in Ibrahim.

The coalition comprise the National Association of Nigerian Students, Kwara State branch, and the National Association of Kwara State Students.

The students’ speech was jointly signed by the Chairman, NANS, Kwara, Abdulkadir Aliyu; President, NAKSS, Abdulafeez Oyedepo; and Director of Travelling and Exchange, NANS, Abdullahi Olawale.

“Ibrahim’s unblemished reputation, leadership sagacity, hospitality, open door policy, philanthropic gesture, kind heartedness, ‘articulacy’, listening ears and most importantly, his integrity, have given us hope that with his kind, there is great hope for the Nigerian students,” Aliyu said.