Nigeria’s Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has denied reports that he is gearing up to run for the country’s presidency in 2023.
Lawan spoke a statement issued Saturday by Ola Awoniyi, his Special Adviser on Media, in response to media reports.
The media aide made this known in a statement on Saturday while reacting to certain reports published by some media outlets claiming otherwise.
“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 statement said.
There have been rumors that some Nigerian politicians have begun clandestine moves to position themselves for the country’s presidential election scheduled to hold in 2020.
“The report apparently has its source in beer parlor gossips and should be treated with the contempt which it and those who concocted it deserves,” the statement 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.”
