Senate President Ahmad Lawan is hoping that the All Progressives Congress (APC) can have a successful national convention and go into next year’s general election to be re-elected by Nigerians, saying that even though challenges remain in the country, the ruling party has done well.
He spoke to correspondents on Thursday after leading the APC National Assembly caucus leadership to a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari over Saturday’s national convention to elect members of its National Working Committee (NWC).
He said: “I want to add here, finally, to say that we are committed to ensuring that this political party does not only have a successful convention but a very successful, peaceful and safe electioneering campaign during 2022/2023 general campaigns and the general elections.
“By the grace of God, we’ll see Nigerians voting once again, for APC, because we have so far done so much in the areas that matter for the people of this country. But that is not to say that we are not facing some challenges. We are, but we are squaring up to ensure that we deal with those challenges.”
Lawan stressed the importance of the APC convention, expressing the hope that the party could reach a consensus and produce a unity list that would lead to affirmation during the exercise.
According to him, “this convention, by way of emphasis is a very important convention for us, in APC, and by the grace of God, through our processes and procedures, at different levels of the party, the convention would be a very successful one, very peaceful one.
“We hope that we would have achieved so much consensus in selecting and electing the officers for this party so that when we go into the convention, most of the officers should be for affirmation or confirmation.”
Explaining the need for consensus, he said the various zones are working actively to agree on their candidates before Saturday, adding: “The essence of this engagements is for the party to achieve consensus, and consensus is a process. It doesn’t just happen like that. So, I believe that before we go into the convention square on Saturday, by the grace of God, we would have a lot of consensus reached and maybe the sort of document that we call or refer to as unity list, that is bringing all the agreed positions where consensus have been achieved in the various sections or geopolitical zones of the country.
“Only yesterday we had a meeting of the Northeast, and we have achieved consensus, and other zones are either about to conclude or will conclude before the end of tomorrow, Friday. But by Saturday, I think the answers will all be there for everybody to see.”
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Lawan disclosed that during the meeting with the President, Buhari emphasized the need for the ruling party to remain focused to maintain the present trajectory of development.
The Senate President also said that the National Assembly has remained stable under the APC because the ruling party had enjoyed the cooperation of opposition members.
He further said: “Mr President, emphasised the need for us, in the APC to be united, always act as a family, ensure that we remain focused. We have the leadership of Nigeria today at the national level. And of course, we have many states, about 22 states, under the leadership of the APC governors.
“We have 22 states and then control the federal government that requires that APC as a political party remains very focus, energetic, and purposeful, as it has always been, and ensure that we maintain the trajectory of development for our country.
“Because that is trust Nigerians gave us in 2015 and renewed that, in 2019. Mr President also emphasized the need for us to ensure that we have a successful convention on the 26th of this month March.”
“It is very important to also emphasize here, that the nineth National Assembly has been a very stable National Assembly, has been a very productive National Assembly. And we have remained very united in the two chambers, as APC senators and members of the House of Representatives.
“And we have remained in very good partnership with our other political friends who are in different political parties. We have the PDP, and of course, APGA in the Senate, and I believe that they might have even more minority parties in the House of Representatives.
“But our colleagues, in the PDP, for example, have worked with us to ensure that the national interest is always supreme in our consideration.
“And we thank God that today, by the grace of God, the ninth National Assembly has done so much in the area of legislation. We have achieved so many firsts, and the area of legislation and broke so many jinxes, passed legislations that defied passage. And by the grace of God, Mr President has assented to almost all those bills, all those legislations that matter for the development of this country.
“Finally, I want to say that this meeting with Mr President has given us more energy. We believe that there is a father, at least in our party, there is a president who will ensure that once there are disagreements he is able to call everybody to order and ensure that the family continues to remain united and that is what we have been able to achieve over the years.
“Well, I don’t want to be very partisan. But of course, when you have a father in the family and a mother, then you’re likely to have a stable family. And when we have only one or none in the family, you are not likely to be successful, the family is likely to be disunited, and that is what other political parties probably are facing,” the Senate President stated.
Also speaking, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, affirmed that the essence of the meeting with President Buhari was to have a common front going into the national convention of the APC.
He stated: “Well, thank you very much. I have very little to add to what the Senate president has said. Except that this meeting was a productive one. As many of you are aware the President in the last couple of days has been having meetings with stakeholders towards the convention that is coming up on Saturday.
“And the whole idea is to encourage all stakeholders to unite, have a common front, and have a peaceful rancour-free and successful convention. That’s what that meeting was about the long and short of it, and to make sure everybody’s on the same page, in terms of being united in terms of candidates.
“And we all know that in conventions such as this, where you have almost 5000, delegates, and many more. You have to be well organised. You have to be freed up to be fair to everybody. And that’s what he charged obviously like any leader would.”
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