South cry daylight robbery as Lawan is announced APC consensus presidential candidate

South cry daylight robbery as Lawan emerges APC consensus presidential candidate

• Southern aspirants cry foul, say it’s their region’s turn
• APC may experience implosion unless…

Southern presidential aspirants are crying foul and screaming daylight robbery as Yobe State-born Senate President Ahmad Lawan is announced consensus candidate of the ruling party. In contradistinction with the position of most Northern Governors on power shift to the South, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdullahi Adamu Monday afternoon announced Lawan as the APC consensus presidential candidate.

Adamu, a former Governor of Nasarawa State, made the announced at the meeting of the National Working Committee (NWC) Monday in Abuja.

A top member of the NWC who pleaded anonymity, however told Image Newspaper  that such was not adopted by the NWC.

Said the source, “Yes, it’s true. The chairman announced it but it was not discussed or adopted by the NWC. He just announced it as his personal opinion. Such cannot stand.”

Mr. Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan, the incumbent Senate President was born on January 12, 1959 in Gashua, Yobe State. He represents the Yobe North Senatorial District in the Senate.

Before entering politics, Ahmed Lawan worked in the Yobe State Civil Service as an Education Officer in the state Ministry of Education from 1985 to 1986. He later lectured at his alma mater, the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) between 1987 and 1997.

Lawan was first elected to the House of Representatives on the platform of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in 1999 to represent the Bade/Jakusko Constituency. He was reelected in 2003 before successfully running to become Yobe North Senator in in 2007.

In 2008, he was a member of the National Assembly’s Joint Committee on Constitution Review. In 2009, as chairman of the Senate committee on Public Accounts, Lawan initiated and sponsored the Desertification Control Commission Bill.

Lawan was reelected to the Senate on the ANPP platform in 2011. In 2015, he was again reelected to the Senate on the crest of the APC. In 2019, he was again reelected on the platform of the same and was subsequently elected Senate President in June 2019.

Meanwhile, Adamu’s announcement of Lawan as the consensus has triggered bitter protests from several top notches of APC mostly from the camps of other presidential aspirants from the Southern part of the country.

They vowed that the alleged consensus amounted to a daylight robbery of Southern Nigeria whose turn it was to produce the presidential flagbearer.