At least 61 senators-elect have signed up to vote Ahmed Lawan as Senate president, his campaign organisation said on Saturday.
The secretary of the organisation, Barau Jibrin, read the names on the list to journalists at Transcorp Hilton Abuja.
Mr Jibrin said the list comprised of 60 out of the 62 elected APC Senators and one from the Young Peoples Party (YPP).
He said the list was initially 64 but was trimmed to 62 due to the ruling on Zamfara State.
He expressed confidence that the 61 would vote Mr Lawan.
Fact Checking reveals that only 32 senators were present at the briefing.
Earlier, the chairman of the campaign committee, Yahaya Abdullahi, dispelled the notion that Mr Lawan is arrogant as some think.
“Some people will come to me and say Lawan is arrogant. He is not arrogant, he’s a laid down person,” he said. “He’s not an extrovert and this is the man we are now supporting.”
He also reacted to criticism that his candidacy is an imposition by the party and the Presidency.
“There was no imposition. There was only coincidence of opinion and that coincidence favoured us,” he said.
He said that meetings and campaigns had already started well before the party and Presidency’s endorsement.
Mr Lawan who was at the briefing, said the campaign organisation consciously decided not to add the names of PDP lawmakers to the endorsement list.
He said he was confident of at least 35 votes from the opposition party.
“I can tell you that out of 44 PDP, we cannot have less than 35 to 38,” he said.