Simon Lalong, the former governor of Plateau State, has been granted his Certificate of Return for the 10th National Assembly, serving as the senator-elect for Plateau South.
Lalong received the certificate on Thursday at the Independent National Electoral agency’s (INEC) Abuja headquarters from Mohammed Haruna, a National Commissioner with the agency.
Lalong was one of the seven departing governors who did not win a Senate seat in the polls conducted for the National Assembly on February 25.
Napoleon Bali of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated Lalong, a former director general of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), with 148,844 votes to the former governor’s 91,674.
President Bola Tinubu named the former governor as Minister of Labour and Employment following his defeat.
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But earlier in November, the Court of Appeal in Abuja declared the PDP and Bali’s election participation invalid due to their reluctance to comply with a valid court order.
Under the direction of Justice Elfreda Williams-Dawodu, a three-person panel ruled that the PDP’s election-related votes were illegal and squandered, and they named Lalong as the poll’s winner.
The former governor must resign from his position as the President’s cabinet’s Minister of Labour and Employment in order to take the oath of office as a senator. In contrast, a few members of the 10th National Assembly had left their positions to become part of the President’s administration. Dave Umahi, the Minister of Works, and Femi Gbajabiamila, the Chief of Staff of the President, are among them.
