Sen. Abdullahi confident of Lawan’s emergence as Senate President

With barely 24 hours to the convening of the 9th National Assembly, the Lawan Campaign Group has expressed confidence that Sen. Ahmad Lawan will emerge President of the Senate.

The Chairman of the group, Sen. Yahaya Abdullahi, expressed the confidence in an interview with our reporter in Abuja on Monday.

He said he was sure of Lawan’s victory because his team began making the necessary contact with members-elect, even before endorsement from President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“We are quite certain that we will succeed, by the grace of God.

“We have worked hard. We started immediately after the election to campaign for Sen. Ahmad Lawan.

“We started before we knew we were going to get the blessing of the party and President Muhammadu Buhari.

“In spite of the endorsement we felt it was necessary to reach out to our colleagues in the APC and the opposition parties because the major opposition, PDP has 44 senators-elect which is not a small number out of 109 members expected to make the 9th assembly.

“We also met with them on one on one basis. We met with them as a caucus in Sen. Ike Ekweremadu’s house and we were well received.

“In fact Ekweremadu said it was the first meeting of the senate because everybody was there exchanging banters,” he said.

Abdullahi said that the PDP was aware of Lawan’s capacity to deliver on the job and to do justice to all and so its members would vote for him.

On Sen. Ali Ndume, who is the only other contestant for the senate presidency, Abdullahi said he wished him well, adding that they were friends and not foes.

He said: “In fact I was exchanging banters with him when I went for accreditation this morning.

“We have been friends in spite of our political struggles and positions in the senate.

“We have cooperated on many other platforms. Besides, Ndume has the right to contest and he is exercising his inalienable right.”

The chairman said that while it was necessary to contest for positions in the national assembly, the most important thing to note was that at the end of the day they would all become the senators of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to represent Nigerians.