… says ‘it’s premature to talk about that now’
SENATE President Ahmad Lawan has denied reports that he is putting strategies in place to run for 2023 presidency.
His Special Adviser on Media, Ola Awoniyi, who conveyed the Senate President’s position in a statement on Saturday, noted that it was premature to think about 2023 at the moment.
Awoniyi, however, confirmed that his principal was in consultations with President Muhammadu Buhari before the last emergency National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress, but added that there was nothing extraordinary in the meeting, considering his position as senate president.
According to him, media reports about a presidential ambition being perfected by Lawan have their “source in beer parlour gossips” and should be discountenanced.
He said, “The attention of the office of the President of the Senate has been drawn to a rather puerile media report that the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, is making plans to run for president in 2023. The report was first published by the Daily Independent newspaper of Friday, 17th July, 2020 and reproduced later by the Sahara Reporters.
“The report apparently has its source in beer parlour gossips and should be treated with the contempt which it and those who concocted it deserves.”
Awoniyi added, “It is true that the Senate President was involved in the consultations that President Muhammadu Buhari held prior to the last emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
“But there was nothing extra-ordinary in his involvement in such consultations, given his status as holder of one of the highest political offices in Nigeria and on the platform of the APC. Such is required of any concerned member of the party.”
“The Senate President believes that it is premature for anybody to be talking now about 2023 when all hands should be on deck against the myriad of challenges that faces our nation in this period,” he declared.
