Senate Presidency: Goje’s Exit, Buhari’s Role And The Race Ahead

By Political Editor

The Senate leadership was on Thursday narrowed down to a straight battle between Senators Ahmad Lawan and Ali Ndume following the decision of Senator Danjuma Goje to step down from the contest.

Goje’s decision followed a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa. As he stepped down, Goje announced his endorsement of Lawan according to Governor Nasir El-Rufai who was also part of the meeting and probably brokered the meeting.

Goje had been seen as a major contender and the preferable choice of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP senators. That supposition was partly influenced by the relationship between him and the outgoing Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki with whom he moved away from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress, APC.

It had also been whispered that of all the candidates that his camp was bidding the highest amount of money for senators open to financial negotiations.

However, the corruption case he is facing in the courts had prompted suggestions that he could be pressured into withdrawing from the contest in favour of the president’s preferred choice of Lawan.

With the decision of Goje to withdraw, observers would be watching out for Ndume’s next steps and if the PDP would be able to come out with a consensus as the party did in 2015 when it voted as a bloc to back the Saraki-Ike Ekweremadu ticket.

There are 44 senators-elect belonging to the PDP while the APC has 62 senators-elect.

An inclination towards that is, however, not certain given insinuations that immediate past Senate President, Senator David Mark and his protegee, Senator-Elect Abba Moro are backing Lawan. Senator Peter Nwaoboshi is also said to be backing Lawan, putting the Yobe North senator in the ascendancy.

However, a Senate source speaking after Goje’s exit said the permutations remain uncertain.

“We will have to wait till election for everything to play out, you cannot say anything is settled now,” the source who has been in the Senate since 2003 said.

There are now suggestions that having gotten Goje out of the contest that President Buhari could go further by urging Ndume to ease out of the contest a development that could show the president’s determination to exert his position as the leader of the party and the country.

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