Senate President, Godswill Akpabio has sworn in the immediate past Federal Minister of Labour, Employment and Productivity, Simon Lalong, as a member of the Red Chamber of the National Assembly, the 10th Senate.
Lalong took the oath of office on the floor of the Senate today, December 20 after which Senator Akpabio congratulated him.
Lalong is a former governor of Plateau State and the Director-General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Campaigns during the 2023 presidential poll that produced President Bola Tinubu.He will represent Plateau-South on the platform of the APC.
Lalong, who is also former Speaker of the Plateau State House of Assembly, had tendered his resignation to President Tinubu earlier yesterday, December 19.
Speaking soon after his inauguration, Lalong said that he actually wanted to be a senator after he served his tenure as governor in May 2023.
“This was my first choice, to be candid.”
He said that he opted to hold the position of minister in the interim and on the invitation of Tinubu because he had a case he was pursuing at the courts.
Lalong promised to do his best to serve his electorate to the best of his abilities.
The Court of Appeal, Abuja Division, had on November 7, upheld the judgment of the lower tribunal, which declared Lalong the winner of the Plateau-South Senatorial District election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Napoleon Bali, as the winner.
Bali had scored 148,844 votes, while Lalong recorded 91,674, according to INEC.
But Lalong challenged the result on the grounds that the PDP had no proper structures in the state on which a candidate could contest an election.
