Senate presidency: Shekrau, two others throw weight behind Lawan

The ambition of Senator Ahmed Lawan to be the next Senate Leader of the incoming Ninth Assembly has just received a boost after no less than three Senators from Kano endorsed his candidacy during his visit to the state.

Lawan’s recent endorsement came from three senators, namely Barau Jubrin, Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya and senator-elect Malam Ibrahim Shekrau, who threw their weights behind his ambition.

The Senators led by Barau Jubrin, who is the secretary of Ahmed Lawan Campaign Organization, also described Lawan as eminently qualified to occupy the exalted seat, going by international parliamentary best practices.

According to Senator Jubrin, “the National Assembly leadership is elected based on international parliamentary best practices. What used to be the case was a beat appellation to that parliamentary best practices.

“In every parliament, leaders are elected based on ranking, based on experience, and once a parliament goes by election and the party that gets the majority in that election produces the leader, and in this case, the majority leader in such a parliament automatically becomes the Senate President or the Speaker, as the case may be.

“Now, Ahmed Lawan is the current leader and he will be the oldest senator, the most ranked Senator in the 9th Senate. He was a two-time member of House of Representatives and four-time member of the Senate. So, he is the most experienced and most ripe for the job of the Senate presidency, going by intentional parliamentary best practices.”

On his part, Shekarau, two-time governor of Kano State and senator-elect for Kano Central who hosted the Lawan’s campaign train, said: “I am so highly honoured to be visited by this high-powered delegation led by the leader of the Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan.

“I am now a Senator-elect and I pray the 9th National Assembly will be a very peaceful and smooth one, where we will all join hands together to move Nigeria forward.

“I believe you have all it takes to lead the National Assembly. We are already your canvassers. Whether you are around or not, you need not to be out to it, or recruit us to do it. We understand where we need to go and who needs to have the responsibility to lead us.

In his response, Senator Lawan said they were in Kano to solicit the support of Malam Shekarau.

He said; “We are very happy you are going to be part of the 9th Senate. The 9th Senate will be a very good one because we have so many people who have gone through some other experiences in life.

“Even before you became a governor, you were a very disciplined person, a very thorough person and a very considerate person.