Ime Akpan
With barely 72 hours to the inauguration of the 9th national assembly and election of leaders slated for Tuesday, June 11, top contenders for the posts of senate president and speaker of House of Representatives have spoken of their chances to clinch the plum jobs.
The front runners are Messrs Ahmad Lawan and Ali Ndume of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the senate presidency job and Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, APC, for the speaker, House of Representatives.
Lawan, who is the anointed candidate of the APC for the senate presidency post claimed that had been endorsed by 99 of the 109 senators-elect to clinch the job.
The endorsement list unveiled by the chairman of the Lawan Campaign Organisation, Mr. Yahaya Abdullahi and M. Barau Jibrin at a media briefing in Abuja include the names of Mr. Danjuma Goje who stepped down for Lawan on the prompting of President Muhammadu Buhari, former governors Ibikunle Amosun, Ibrahim Gaidam, Kashim Shettima, and Umar Tanko Al-Makura of Osun, Yobe, Borno and Nasarawa states respectively.
Sixty of those who endorsed Lawan are from the All Progressives Congress (APC).
It was gathered that the only Young People’s Party (YPP) senator-elect, Mr. Ifeanyi Uba, had also endorsed Lawan.
The APC candidate also expressed confidence that he could get between 35 and 38 votes from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) senators-elect.
It would be recalled that five PDP senators elect showed up at the presentation of Lawan’s ‘Blueprint for a senate and national assembly that will meet the expectations of Nigerians’ held in Abuja on Friday, June 7.
They were Messrs. Abba Moro (Benue South), Mathew Urhoghide (Edo South), Clifford Ordia (Edo Central), Gershom Bassey (Cross River South), and Lawal Anka (Zamfara West).
“For my colleagues in the APC, this is the first time that members of the national assembly, whether in the house of representatives or in the senate of a particular party, would come together in this unanimous way to endorse a candidate for the office of a presiding officer.
“The APC, as of today, stands at 62 senators-elect and the PDP 44 members.
“We have two cases undetermined in Imo State. But one was almost determined yesterday (Friday); that of senator-elect, Rochas Okorocha, when the court said INEC should give him his return certificate.
“That will take the number of APC senators-elect to 63; and of course, YPP, one.
“Out of the 62 with returned certificates in APC, 60 have signed here. But you know we will love to have the 62 signed.
“We are not prepared to fight each other. We will do everything possible to bring everybody on board because we don’t want distraction,” said Lawan.
But his opponent, Ndume said endorsement does not translate into electoral victory.
He said he was confident of winning on Tuesday.
“Well, I’ve said before that I am not looking for endorsement but looking for votes on election day.
“You know clearly that there is the difference between endorsement and election. You would recall too that in 2015 that story of endorsement was canvassed. He had the endorsement but what happened on the floor of the Senate was different.
“This kind of thing has been there all along, we have seen endorsements against several elections.
“We are there already and shall become past in question of hours from now,” said Ndume.
Meanwhile, Gbajabiamila, who is also APC’s preferred candidate, has reached out to 60 PDP members-elect, offering them committee chairmanship and deputy positions.
The director general of the Femi Gbajabiamila/Ahmed Wase Campaign Organisation, Mr. Abdulmumin Jibrin, who disclosed this in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Saturday, said 60 PDP lawmakers-elect had accepted the offer and had started working with their colleagues in APC for Gbajabiamila’s victory on Tuesday.
“Before Femi’s endorsement by the party, the President, the governors, the majority of us the lawmakers had agreed that he is the Speaker that we want. It was after that decision that other endorsements came.
“As it is today, he has a massive support across party lines. In 2015, the APC was just only guarding its votes because we believed then that we had the number to win the election.
“But this time round, the APC is more comfortable because we have more numbers with our 223.
“In spite of that, our campaign is more aggressive towards poaching the PDP members than the aggression of the PDP members trying to poach our members.
“But as a safety net, we already have over 60 members of the PDP working with us. There is nothing you can do to change the minds of these PDP members because their support is based on their conviction that Gbajabiamila and Wase are the best to occupy those positions at this time.
“On the aspect of responsibility in the parliament, we are always reluctant mentioning this but it is the reality, sharing of committees and the rest. We have offered 60 positions.
“If not that the party has been broken into two factions, it is what we would have offered to all of them, but since we have concluded with one faction, we have given them that offer and they have accepted it,” he said.
Notwithstanding Jibrin’s claim, the PDP leadership said the party will on Monday decide who support among those aspiring to be senate president and speaker of the House of Representatives.
Punch quotes the deputy national publicity secretary of the party, Mr. Diran Odeyemi, as saying in an interview that the party’s leadership wanted to make the endorsement a last-minute affair.
“They want to take the decision on Monday. They want (to make) it a last-minute affair but the horse trading and underground work are ongoing,” he said.
However, he added that the possibility of the PDP presenting candidates for the offices of the senate president and the speaker of the House of Representatives should not be ruled out.
“On whether we are likely to present a candidate, it depends on the situation of things generally. Anything can happen, anything can crop up. You do not rule out anything.
“In politics, 24 hours is still a long time. When Bukola Saraki became the senate president, was Nigeria expecting it that he would win the election or that he would become the Senate President? No! Anything can happen, it depends on the strategy. We are keeping our strategy close to our chest. So we cannot say yes or no that the PDP will be presenting candidates.”
