Lawan on senate presidency: Many PDP senators are supporting me

Ahmad Lawan, majority leader of the senate, says “so many” senators in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are in support of his bid for senate presidency.

Speaking as a guest at the NAN forum on Thursday in Abuja, Lawan, who is of the All Progressives Congress (APC), promised not to let his colleagues down if elected.

The senator has been endorsed by the leadership of the APC as well as President Muhammadu Buhari but that did not stop two of his colleagues in the north-east – Ali Ndume and Danjuma Goje – from also joining the race.

But Lawan said he is not worried having opposition from his own region. The senate leader is from Yobe state.

“In fact, APC senators, almost everyone is on this project and we have sat and spoken and talked one-on-one,” he said.

“So many PDP senators are in support of this project. In fact, YPP is fully on board, Sen. Ifeanyi Uba from Anambra. And we believe that this is the way to go.

“We are going from door to door; we are talking to all the senators-elect. We talk to the APC senators, PDP senators and YPP senator, believing that we are going to work with them.

”I want to assure everyone very seriously because it is a burden that my party feels I can carry. By the grace of God and with the support of my colleagues in the APC, PDP and YPP in the Senate, we should be able to deliver that burden very well.

“I have no hard feelings against my brothers from the north east contesting. What the party and the leaders did was to say I have been recommended or I have been endorsed.

”That is a preference; that the party has a preference is not to say that others cannot do the job. But definitely, the party, our leaders have some reasons why they think we are most suitable for this job.”

He added if elected, the senate would ensure that public funds are judiciously utilised through its oversight function.

According to him, “we want to see public funds being properly applied and deployed, we want to see less of embezzlement or no embezzlement of public funds.

“This is because sometimes not the quantum of funds that you have but how you are able to ensure proper and prudent deployment of those resources that matters. We had so much resources in the past but bulk of those resources were embezzled.”