By Tijani Adeyemi – Abuja
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said on Monday that his re-election to the Senate for the fifth term is a victory for the people of Yobe North Senatorial District in Yobe State.
Lawan won the Saturday Senatorial election by a landslide victory, having polled 91,318 votes, representing 74.7 per cent of the total valid votes(122,193), to defeat his closest rival, Bello Ilu of PDP, who polled 22,849 votes
The Senate President had a comfortable win in each of the six Local Government Areas that make up the Yobe North Senatorial District, namely Machina, Nguru, Yusufari, Bade, Jakusko and Karasuwa.
The Senate President told journalists shortly before his departure to Abuja from his home town in Gashua that his Yobe North people prayed, fasted and did everything possible to ensure his election back in the Senate.
He said: “The victory is not mine. The victory belongs to the people of Yobe North Senatorial District.
“You know how well they did to ensure we got the nomination to run for this seat. They fasted, prayed and did so many things, sacrificed, just because they wanted me to run.
“And therefore, they actualized their dream of voting me back to the Senate on Saturday when they voted en masse. To their credit, this is the highest number of votes against all the previous elections I participated in.
“And therefore, I want to take this opportunity to thank the Almighty Allah for his blessings and thank the people of Yobe North Senatorial District for sticking with me, for believing in me, for trusting me to renew my mandate once again, for me to go back to the Senate and the 10th National Assembly to represent them and I thank them.
“I want to also thank the national and state levels APC for making sure that, as a party, they stayed behind me all through the period that we had some challenges.
“And of course, I want also to thank the Governor of Yobe State, His Excellency, Hon. Mai Mala Buni for believing that this party and our people are so significant in this state’s politics.
“The Governor stayed all through the travails to ensure that the Yobe North Senatorial District poll is contested by someone that the people of Yobe North believe and trust.”
