Senate Presidency: North East Senators Disown Ahmad Lawan

Race  for the Senate
Presidency of the 8th Senate took a new twist yesterday with 10 out of the 13
Senators elected on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC
disowning  Senator Ahmad Lawan ( APC Yobe
North) as the consensus candidate for the position.

This is even as the 20 APC Senators from the North West,
endorsed the candidature of Ahmad Lawan for the position at the end of a caucus
meeting held at Sheraton Hotels and Towers on Thursday night.

But the Danjuma Goje ( Gombe Central) led North East APC
Senators at a media briefing in Abuja yesterday declared that no zone will be
allowed to impose candidate on them.

Goje who addressed the press along with nine  other Senators – elect from the zone, said as
far as they are concerned from the North East, they are still pleading with
party leadership to officially zone the position to them , after which whoever
that will emerge as consensus candidate will be decided by them and not by any
other zone.

  

He explained that at a caucus meeting held by the senators
at the Kaduna room of Transcorp Hilton Hotel on Thursday night which had Ahmad
Lawan himself in attendance, that the caucus should be allowed in consultation
with the party leadership to nominate their preferred candidate for the
position..

He said: ‘ On Thursday night at the Kaduna room of Transcorp
Hilton, Abuja, 12 out of the 13 APC Senators – elect from the North East, met
and resolved as follows- (1), that North East APC senators’ caucus  for the 8th Senate have been put on ground, (
ii) that the zone is appealing to the APC highest hierarchy to zone the highest
position in the National Assembly, that is, the position of Senate President to
the zone in view of its peculiar circumstances and (ii), that the caucus should
be allowed in consultation with the party leadership to nominate whoever we
want for the position.

“Therefore, in the light of the above resolutions, we
call on all Nigerians to completely diisregard any purported endorsement of any
senator from the North East by any zone for the position yet because any post
zoned to us, must have our input.

”We don’t know anything about any endorsement of anybody
from  the North East being touted around
through the pages of newspapers . We disassociate ourselves from any
endorsements from other zones because the party has not zoned any position to
us yet and we don’t want to jump the gun”.

 But further revealing what transpired at the Transcorp
Hilton meeting, one of the APC Senators -elect from the zone , specifically
from Adamawa state, said the anger of the senators against Lawan!s purported
endorsements by North West and South West caucuses, was fueled by the way Lawan
himself tried to outsmart them at the meeting.

According to the Senator, Lawan sneaked out of the meeting
in the heat of the resolutions arrived at, only for him to be announced as the
endorsed candidate from the Zone for the post of Senate President by both the
North West and South West caucuses few minutes after.

“This to us the remaining 12 APC senators- elect from
the zone, is fraudulent and unacceptable and infact, desperation at its
peak”, the senator fumed.

Notable APC Senators-elect at the briefing aside the
Chairman, Danjuma Goje, were Isa Ahmed Gusau, the Secretary of the caucus (
Bauchi Central),  Ali Ndume ( Borno
South), Bukar Abba Ibrahim ( Yobe Central) and 
Abdulaziz Murtala Nyako ( Adamawa Central.

Others are Binta Marshi Garba ( Adamawa North), Ahmed
Abubakar ( Adamawa South), Usman Bayero Nafada ( Gombe North), Abubakar Jare (
Borno North ) and Sulynan Nazif ( Bauchi North) , while Senator Ahmad Zannah (
Borno Central) , was said to be indisposed and Ahmad Lawan said to be bereaved.