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Choice Of Ahmed Lawan: APC Making The Same Mistake Twice – Yakasai

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Senate Presidency: 37 PDP Senators-Elect ‘Endorse’ APC’s Lawan
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With the drama that has ensued over the leadership of the 9th senate, Tanko Yakasai, elder statesman and political adviser in the second Republic, said it would not favour the All Progressives Congress (APC) to insist on Ahmed Lawan.

Naija News reports that after much ado, the APC harnessed Lawan, senate majority leader, to succeed Bukola Saraki as the leader of the red chamber.

Yakasai who was speaking in an interview today said he expected the ruling party to have learnt from its mistakes.

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He argued that the lawmakers should be allowed to choose who will lead them, and not a person imposed on them.

“Well, they have been touting this idea for a long time. Remember when the current Senate was convened after the 2015 election, they wanted Ahmad Lawan to be the Senate president,” he said.

“It was the rupture in the party that led a chunk of party senators to team up with PDP senators to get Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu as president and deputy president of the Senate.

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“What I am surprised about, I thought what happened to them in the last dispensation would have been a lesson for them to allow legislators to decide who should be their leaders.

“I worked with National Assembly for four years. I know the mindset of members of the National Assembly. They believe that they have their own mandate separate from the mandate of the President.”

On his support for the PDP’s Atiku Abubakar in the elections, the elder statesman said he supported Atiku because of his experience in governance and business.

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When asked if he believed the eventual winner, Muhammadu Buhari, won fair and square?” Yakasai  replied, “No, I do not. Quite alright, I supported Atiku because I don’t believe that Buhari has the capacity and the competence to handle the Nigerian problem.”

He further predicted that APC might field Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo or Bola Tinubu, a national leader of APC, in 2023.

On the possibility of the APC fielding a presidential candidate from the south-east in 2013, Yakasai said the region will be sidelined for the south-west.

His words: “The current calculation is that the vice-president is from the Southwest. Clearly, there is an unwritten understanding that when Buhari finishes, the Vice President will likely be the next presidential candidate of the APC,”

“The Vice President is a Yoruba man. Even if it is not Osinbajo, somebody from there, probably Tinubu, will likely emerge as the candidate of the party.

“And with the performance of the party in the southeast, I don’t see any possibility that the party will think of giving its candidacy to the southeast as against the support it earned from the southwest.

“Apart from voting, don’t forget that there were some material support which APC enjoyed from the Southwest.”