The ambition of Senate Leader, Ahmed Lawan, to become the Senate President in the 9th Senate has received a boost with three senators from Kano State endorsing his candidacy.

The three senators, namely Barau Jubrin, Kabiru Ibrahim Gaya and senator-elect Malam Ibrahim Shekrau, threw their weights behind Senator Lawan’s candidacy, describing him as eminently qualified to occupy the exalted seat, going by international parliamentary best practices.

Senator Barau Jubrin, who is the secretary of Ahmed Lawan Campaign Organization, led other members of the campaign train to the residence of Senator-elect Shekarau, who also endorsed Lawan.

Among those who visited Kano with the Senate Leader were Senator Yahaya Abdullahi (Kebbi North), chairman, Ahmed Lawan Campaign Organization; Senator Danladi Sankara who is the new Senator-elect for Jigawa North-West Senatorial District; Senator Bello Maudiya (Katsina South); Senator Solomon Adeola Olamilekan (Lagos West); Senator Degi-Eremienyo (Bayelsa East) and Senator Lekan Mustapha (Ogun East).

According to Senator Jubrin, “the National Assembly leadership is elected based on international parliamentary best practices. What used to be the case was a beat appellation to that parliamentary best practices.

“In every parliament, leaders are elected based on ranking, based on experience, and once a parliament goes by election and the party that gets the majority in that election produces the leader, and in this case, the majority leader in such a parliament automatically becomes the Senate President or the Speaker, as the case may be.

“Now, Ahmed Lawan is the current leader and he will be the oldest senator, the most ranked Senator in the 9th Senate. He was a two-time member of House of Representatives and four-time member of the Senate. So, he is the most experienced and most ripe for the job of the Senate presidency, going by intentional parliamentary best practices.”

On his part, Shekarau, two-time governor of Kano State and senator-elect for Kano Central who hosted the Lawan’s campaign train, said: “I am so highly honoured to be visited by this high-powered delegation led by the leader of the Senate, Senator Ahmed Lawan.

“I am now a Senator-elect and I pray the 9th National Assembly will be a very peaceful and smooth one, where we will all join hands together to move Nigeria forward.

“I also congratulate you for aspiring to lead the National Assembly. It is one thing to be there, it is another thing to be identified as a leader. It is a challenge and we are all proud of the fact the it is one of those that we have known before that is aspiring to lead the National Assembly.

“I believe you have all it takes to lead the National Assembly. We are already your canvassers. Whether you are around or not, you need not to be out to it, or recruit us to do it. We understand where we need to go and who needs to have the responsibility to lead us.

“It is not that you a super person among the rest, but one thing is that you are the first among the equals, and I believe that with all the other experienced people around, you will be able to give Nigeria, a Senate that everybody will be very proud of.

“So, I pray Allah in his wisdom will see you through and I pray you will make it, you will succeed. For the fact that others are interested is nothing new. It is a contest, many others may want to come in.

“Sometimes it is more interesting to say that I won election than just say it is dashed over. So, I pray Allah in his wisdom will grant you the success. Allah will give you the required guidance and bless you.”

In his response, Senator Lawan said they were in Kano to solicit the support of Malam Shekarau whose wealth of experience he said is much needed to move the 9th Senate forward.

According to him, “we are very happy you are going to be part of the 9th Senate. The 9th Senate will be a very good one because we have so many people who have gone through some other experiences in life.

“Even before you became a governor, you were a very disciplined person, a very thorough person and a very considerate person.

“Now, when you became a governor, you introduced sanity in Kano. You have gathered a lot of experience in life. We hope and pray that such experience will be made available in the Senate and I want to say that you are going to be one of our leaders in the Senate because we always have a small group of people that we refer to as leaders, not because they are former governors, but because they have seen so much in life.