Malik Yahya/
Senator-Elect Ahmed Ibrahim Lawan from Yobe State today defeated Senator-Elect Mohammed Ali Ndume from Borno State with 79 votes to 28 to emerge as the Senate President of the 9th National Assembly.
A total of 107 senators out of the 109 in Nigeria voted in the exercise inside the Red Chambers, in Abuja.
There was a pointer to who was heading for victory when Lawan stepped out to cast his vote and was greeted with a chorus of applause and standing ovation from majority of senators in the Assembly.
After the vote was counted and a winner clearly emerged, Ndume walked up to Lawan and congratulated him with a handshake.
Fifty-eight-year-old Lawan was thereafter sworn in as Senate President by the Clerk of the National Assembly, Mohammed Sanni-Omolori.
The post of the Deputy Senate President was contested by APC’s Senator-Elect Ovie Omo-Agege and the erstwhile Deputy Speaker, PDP’s Senator-Elect Ike Ekweremadu.
Fifty-six-year-old Omo-Agege won the contest scoring 68 votes against Ekweremadu’s 37.
According to Sanni-Omolori, 105 senators voted, one abstained and there was one invalid vote.
