Senate & House of Reps: APC Settles for Lawan, Gbajabiamila

In shadow elections to fill principal offices in the National Assembly, APC has settled for competence above zoning.  The candidature of Senator Ahmed Lawan and George Akume as Senate President and Deputy Senate President as well as that of Hon Femi Gbajabiamila and Mohammed Mungunu as Speaker and Deputy Speaker, emerged under the party's supervision.

Gbajabiamila, the former Minority Leader of the House in the 7th Assembly and Senator Lawan emerged the consensus candidates at separate meetings called by the party in Abuja to adopt candidates for the National Assembly leadership positions.

While an earlier meeting produced the Gbajabiamila/Munguno ticket, the Lawan/Akume ticket was decidedin the early hours of Sunday. The meeting to decide the Senate leadership commenced at 11pm.

This was just as Senator Bukola Saraki and his gang boycotted from the exercise.

According to LEADERSHIP , Saraki, a frontline contender for the Senate presidency, was against the party’s decision to produce its candidate through a mock or primary election, insisting that the party has no constitutional power to stop him from contesting for the office of the Senate President.

Senator Lawan polled 32 out of 59 votes cast, to emerge the party’s candidate, with one invalid vote, while Akume got 31 votes, with two voided votes.

The result was announced by the returning officer, APC National Secretary, Alhaji Mai Malla Buni.

Senator Lawan has thus urged the party to intervene in building the much needed unity in the party.

North-East, North-West Caucus Endorse Gbajabiamila/Munguno Ticket
House of Representatives Members-elect from the North-East and North-West geopolitical zones have endorsed the Gbajabiamila/Munguno ticket for Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House, respectively.

Addressing journalists in Abuja, on Friday, Director of Press of the Gbajabiamila/Munguno campaign organisation, Sani Zorro, said the support for Gbajabiamila was because of his experience in legislative business, credibility and intellectual acumen.

“If you look at Gbajiamillia, this is someone that has been in the system for eight years, if it were under a parliamentary system that his party won the election, he would have become the prime minister. But this presidential system is about reward and compensation, it is not about punishment. So someone who has led an opposition in a most credible manner, who has brought a lot of political engineering to bear, and most importantly, if you reflect, you will agree with me that from between 1999-2007, most of the so-called opposition leaders, whether at the National Assembly level or national level were all compromised. The moment they stayed in office for five, six months, they start talking from both sides of their mouth.

“But not this gentleman, he is highly competent. Secondly the zone that he belongs to is the third largest zone that got votes for the APC. The South-West voted in block. So, you cannot ignore such a political zone. In fact, apart from the Southern part, in the Northern zone of the country it is the North-West, followed by the North-East, but in the Southern part of the country, it was the South-West that actually helped to deliver the votes,” he stated.