10th NASS Leadership Elections: We’re In Talks With Opposition Parties-Ahmad Lawan

As winners of the senate and house of representatives elections held on February 25 2023 and those who won the supplementary elections that were held in some constituencies about five weeks later get ready for the elections that would produce principal officers of the 10th National Assembly,    President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan has disclosed that the ruling APC has been in talks with members of the opposition parties.

Team@orientactualmags.com learned Lawan, who said  this  on Friday while talking to  State House correspondents after joining residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to pay a Sallah visit to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja ,added that this would help to create stability in the legislative arm of government.

He also noted that no one envisages a repeat of 2015 submitting that the opposition parties will only support candidates  that would be nominated by the APC.

‘ I don’t think opposition parties are planning to usurp because it is presumptuous to expect  that the APC will not be a united party.

 APC is a united party and the opposition parties will simply work with the APC for us to have stability, because there is no way an opposition will decide who should be the senate president, who should be the speaker; it is our party and other leaders that will decide which zone or whoever, and the rest of us in the party will key in and of course the opposition would have no option than to support.

I don’t see anything wrong in the opposition talking to us, or we talking to the opposition to ensure that we’re on the same page, because we need opposition to ensure that we get most of our constitutional amendments passed when the time is ripe because we can’t have the 73 senators that we need in the Senate.

So, you need 73 senators at least for you to have any constitutional amendment. So, you would need opposition.

That’s why it is very, very critical, it is very essential that you work with opposition right from the beginning.

Don’t ever think the opposition should be pushed away. I don’t believe in that. I only believe in the very bipartisan chamber because it is more productive. It is more stable, it’s calm, and it gives you the kind of outcome that you will never get with a very rancorous chamber. And I’ve seen it, we have done it’ he said.

Lawan however refused to give a direct answer when asked if he would be seeking to retain his position in the 10th senate? 

‘Im not here to answer whether I’m running for senate president or not’ he said.

The Senate President also asserted that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has done ‘excellently well’.

‘The Buhari administration is closing on a very strong note. We have succeeded in reducing, minimizing the insecurity that we met in 2015.

This administration has provided so many infrastructures across the country, like no other administration did before. This administration, this President particularly assented to legislations more than any previous president, especially in the last four years.

And we are so proud of this administration, that we have been able to achieve so much, and therefore, is a thing of joy for all of us to come and celebrate with Mr. President, the Eid-el-Fitr today, Friday’ he submitted.

The legislative arm of government has according to him played a key role in the successes recorded by the Buhari administration.

‘That is what the legislature and the executive arm of government had done and this President will go home by the grace of God after the 29th of May 2023, a very satisfied person.

But of course, there are things that we have not been able to do well. The incoming administration that will be headed by Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu will come in and it’s going to be continuity with those areas that we’ve gotten well, and those areas that we have not been able to get well, we’ll rework them, we’ll retool them, we’ll rekindle them and ensure that we continue with the progressive APC administration.

It is one administration, it’s one government, so to speak, and we’re proud to be part of everything that has happened in the last seven and a half years’ he noted. 

Asked if he had any regrets with regard to all he had done as senate President he said ‘no’.

 ‘No no, no, no, no, no, you can’t say regrets. We can only say there are things that we have not been able to satisfactorily addressed. And this is natural, because  we don’t have sufficient funds.

Secondly,  as human beings, there are areas that naturally whatever you do, you may not get it right. But it’s for us to identify those areas, go back and rework them and this administration as it winds up a new one, an APC administration is coming in to take over and by the grace of God will have a national assembly that is also APC.

So, we will continue to work on those areas that we need to improve. So, I am not going to talk about what areas because the time we have here is very limited’ he added-Team@orientactualmags.com
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