Senate President Ahmed Lawan has requested that Nigerians evaluate his presidential ambitions on the basis of his qualifications and not his origin.
He made the comment while seeking the support of All Progressives Congress’ delegates in Katsina on Thursday.
“Yesterday, I was in Katsina to seek the support of party members particularly the delegates for my presidential bid ahead of the party primaries later this month,” he said.
“While in the state, I took the opportunity to inform Nigerians that I am not running as a northern aspirant because the impression created is that I’m a northern aspirant or that northerners are saying they are not going to allow power to the South.
“I’m not running as a northern candidate. I’m running as a Nigerian Presidential aspirant and therefore I come with all my qualifications for that office and people should judge me on the basis of what I have to offer.
“We have been around for sometime. Thank God, from 2019, we have been working with the President of our Party, President Muhammadu Buhari, very closely. I know and I understand most of the national issues that we deal with.
“I’m a participant in this government and I use that as one advantage that I have. Even though I’m a parliamentarian, I have some experience in governance. Real experience. Therefore, we are going round to tell Nigerians that we are available.
“The fact that we came out last speaks volumes, because I didn’t just wake up one morning and say I want to be President. It took a lot of time for those who believe in me to talk to me to also throw my hat in the ring. And after some time, I accepted.
“And that is to say that some people are not satisfied with those they are seeing and they think that we can do better. I have a great deal of respect for those who are running. The other aspirants.
“And I believe that I have my advantages and I’m going to use my advantages by the Grace of God to not only emerge as the candidate of our party but also win the general elections.
“And I’m not running like someone from the northeast, I’m running as a Nigerian because I believe that I understand the issues of development in Nigeria today.
“As a participant in this administration, I know that this administration succeeded in some ways and has not succeeded as much in others and therefore, those areas in which we succeeded, it’s for me to continue to build on them.
“Those areas that we have found ourselves in deficit, that we have not been able to succeed as much, it’s for us to work on them. I am a product of this administration and my party and therefore I commit myself to the ideals of my party.
“I commit myself to the ideals of this administration because it takes every effort by everyone to bring development. Mr President will be finishing his term in 2023 as we all know but his ideals are there and his ideals are to develop our country.”