{"id":978,"date":"2023-03-21T15:45:44","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T15:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/?p=978"},"modified":"2023-03-21T15:45:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T15:45:44","slug":"its-my-turn-to-be-senate-president-kalu-declares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/2023\/03\/21\/its-my-turn-to-be-senate-president-kalu-declares\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s my turn to be Senate President, Kalu declares"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chief Whip of the Senate, Orji Kalu, has declared his intention to contest for Senate presidency in the 10th National Assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kalu, who won re-election to represent Abia North in the Red Chamber, disclosed this Tuesday while briefing newsmen at the National Assembly.<\/span><\/p>\n

The ruling All Progressives Congress maintained a majority in the Senate, having secured 57 seats.<\/span><\/p>\n

APC senators eyeing the Senate presidency have been lobbying their colleagues to seek their support.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from Kalu, who has publicly declared interest in the position, Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom); Sani Musa (Niger); Barau Jibrin (Kano); and Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) are also said to be interested in running for the coveted office.<\/span><\/p>\n

The final candidates for the position will largely be determined by zoning.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the APC leadership said it has not zoned the Senate presidency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some pundits believe that it is likely that APC might zone the post to the South for power balance, especially after its Muslim-Muslim ticket triggered outrage from some quarters, especially the Christian community.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kalu told reporters that it was his turn to become Senate President, being a ranking lawmaker and from the South East.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said, \u201cIt is my turn to become the Senate President. If I\u2019m elected Senate President, I will be team Nigeria. I\u2019m going to work in every corner of Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI schooled in Maiduguri, Borno State. I started my business in Lagos and spread it across all state capitals. My first name will be team Nigeria, my last name will be team Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, I\u2019m the only former governor who has never changed phone line for more than 20 years ago. I\u2019m still willing to maintain that telephone number to answer all my calls. I\u2019m not going to switch off my phones because I\u2019m Senate President.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping that Nigerians will pray for me to become Senate President because\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0my\u00a0turn.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chief Whip of the Senate, Orji Kalu, has declared his intention to contest for Senate presidency in the 10th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenewsnow.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}