A MAIN feature of the build-up to the just concluded election of the leadership of the Senate was the insistence of the senator representing Borno South, Senator Ali Ndume, to contest the position of Senate President. This was despite the fact that his party, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), had made it clear that Senator Ahmad Lawan was its anointed candidate. All entreaties made to Ndume to toe the party’s line and step down for Lawan fell on deaf ears.
Up till the night before the election, friends, associates and concerned party members tried in vain to persuade Ndume against a move they considered an affront on the party on whose platform he rode to the upper chamber. Top government officials, including a former governor and the head of a powerful government agency, were said to have told him to step down to avoid personal humiliation even if he would not do so in the interest of the party. But like the straying dog that would not hear the hunter’s whistle, the senator remained obstinate.
At the base of his confidence was his adoption by some PDP elders and governors on the eve of the election. In fact, he told one of the people who persuaded him to step down: “Have you not heard that I have been adopted by the PDP? I am going to win tomorrow.”
Of course, the election held and Ndume could only garner a paltry 28 votes against the winner, Senator Ahmad Lawan’s 79. The Yobe South senator is now left with the task of worming himself back into the good books of his party.
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