Ali Ndume, the lawmaker representing Borno South South Senatorial District has slammed the National Assembly.

He alleged that the red chamber of the country’s National Assembly has become an approving institution offering unquestioned support to the executive.

Ndume stated this during an interview on Arise Television, expressing worry that the Senate is no longer fulfilling its duty as a deliberative chamber.

“It has become less democratic, and it is very unfortunate. If you look at what the National Assembly historically is built on, the Senate, particularly, is supposed to be a house of deliberation where people will deliberate on policies, actions and spending of government.

“We’re not doing that anymore; we’re now more of an approving institution, just giving necessary and unnecessary support to the executive.

“The division of executive, legislature and judiciary is no longer there; government, to an extent, now has been personalised and privatised,” he said.

The longest serving senator also said he was worried that as a senator, he is not abreast of events happening in the chamber.

When asked, Ndume described the withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger from ECOWAS as a major diplomatic failure, particularly for President Bola Tinubu, who recently handed over leadership of the bloc to President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone.

He suggested that the intervention of elder statesmen like Muhammadu Buhari, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Yakubu Gowon, and Abdulsalami Abubakar might have helped prevent the exit of the three West African nations.