PDP excited as Lawan/Akume Picks Senate presidency Ticket

Senator Ahmed Lawan and George Akume ticket for the Senate President/Deputy race seems to be recording more success, with about 40 of their colleagues said to have thrown their weight behind them. A source from All Progressives Congress (APC) senators-elect told Daily Sun that the development had sparked excitement among the leaders of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Findings further revealed that since the announcement of the ticket, which has Senators Lawan from the North-East and Akume from the North-Central as Senate president and deputy Senate president respectively, many senators-elect, who were yet to make up their minds have now come on board, having welcomed the duo’s campaign which they described as issue-based.

The ‘Unity Forum’ of the Senate under the chairmanship of Senator Barnabas Gamade had at the weekend made public the coming together of the two aspirants.

Explaining that the ticket was unbeatable, the ranking senators-elect likened it to the presidential ticket of the APC, that won the presidential election, adding that most senators-elect across political divide in the yet to be inaugurated Senate were already identifying with the duo, especially those in APC.

“Experience-wise, we have been telling our distinguished colleagues across party lines that the Lawan-Akume ticket will provide the nation with the much-desired legislative know-how because Senator Lawan is going to be the highest ranking APC senator in the 8th Assembly while Senator Akume is a former state governor and a legislator in the last eight years as well as the minority leader”, a senator-elect said.

The senator-elect said it had not been difficult selling the ticket to their colleagues, explaining that Lawan and Akume were free from corruption charges judging by the available records of their service in both the legislature and executive respectively.

“From the pronouncements of our party leaders and their body language, what is of utmost importance to them is for the National Assembly to start on a clean slate with principal officers who will be seen as not only transparent but honest, and who do not carry any baggage of past scandal no matter how small,” they added.

It was gathered that the PDP leaders in the Senate had reaffirmed their readiness to vote Lawan and Akume as their president and deputy president respectively.

Admitting that some APC national leaders were currently engaging PDP leadership in the Senate, the APC ranking senators-elect said their counterparts in the opposition party told them that the Lawan-Akume ticket had made things easy for them.

Some PDP senators-elect were quoted to have promised not to ‘betray’ the ticket made up of APC ranking senator and the party’s minority leader in case there is need for election on June 4 when the eight session of the National Assembly will be inaugurated.