2023: Eight Second Term Governors With Eyes On The Senate Revealed

As the clock ticks towards the 2023 elections, some governors who are completing their second terms next year have commenced moves to switch to the federal parliament, a place tagged as retirement home for state chief executives.
Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, it has been a common practice among governors to retire to the National Assembly as senators after serving out their second term.
Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau State  is first among the second term governors to pick expression of interest and nomination forms to contest the Plateau South senatorial ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The senatorial seat is currently occupied by Nora Ladi Daduut, who was elected to the Red Chamber after the death of Ignatius Longjan.
Serving commissioners from Plateau State raised N60million to purchase the forms for Lalong, according to the chairman of the Commissioners Forum of Plateau State, Yakubu Datti .
As Governor Mohammed Badaru of Jigawa State rounds off his second and final term in office come May 29, 2023, his next political move has become the subject of discourse in the state’s political circle.
While the governor had kept the issue close to his chest, some of his loyalists had linked him to a possible race to the Senate.
The Tide source gathered that the governor’s decision to move to the Red Chamber of the National Assembly was taken during a high-level meeting which took place last week Friday shortly before the governor travelled to Saudi Arabia on lesser hajj.
Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State in early March, declared his interest to contest the Benue North West senatorial seat currently occupied by Senator Emmanuel Orker Jev.
Ortom said he made the move after a series of consultations with his kinsmen, telling them that he had finally been convinced that God had confirmed to him to contest the election.
Few weeks after his declaration, elders from the Masev, Ihyarev and Nongov Development Association (MINDA) in Benue State presented People’s Democratic Party (PDP’s) expression of interest and nomination forms for the Senate race to the governor.
There were reports weeks ago that Umahi had dropped his presidential ambition to contest the Ebonyi South Senatorial seat in the 2023 general elections.
But the governor dismissed claims through the state’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Uchenna Orji, who described the claims as falsehood peddled by political charlatans in a statement.
Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, who vacated the Delta North senatorial seat after one tenure in 2015 to become governor, is yet to publicly declare his intention to return to the Red Chamber after completing his second term in 2023, but feelers from the state indicate that the governor is planning to switch over to the parliament.
Earlier last month, the Delta governor had said his next political move would soon be made public after consultation with stakeholders.
Reacting to speculations that Okowa had procured the PDP nomination and expression of interest forms for senatorial election, his Commissioner for Information, Charles Aniagwu, said it was within his boss’s constitutional right to return to the Red Chamber.
The coast became cleared for Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to move to the legislature in 2023 as the lawmaker representing his Enugu North senatorial district in the Red Chamber after Chukwuka Utazi, announced that he would not run for the senatorial seat.
Utazi, while addressing the delegates of the PDP from the senatorial district, said he decided not to contest to pave the way for the smooth emergence of Ugwuanyi as Enugu North senator in the 10th National Assembly.
“We will follow our brother and leader. We are going to be behind you, and pray that God would guide you to take this decision,” Utazi assured the governor, amid jubilation.
Governor Darius  Ishaku has also commenced scheming to replace the senator representing his Taraba South senatorial district, Emmanuel Bwacha.
The frosty relationship between them forced Bwacha out of the PDP. The lawmaker said he left the party to escape the “apparent persecution” by his governor, whom he accused of being against his political progress.
Gov Aminu Tambuwal is a frontline presidential aspirant of the PDP. However, there are speculations in the state that his plan B is to contest the Sokoto South senatorial election in the event that he loses the party’s presidential primary.
There are insinuations that the governor had asked one of his commissioners, Aminu Bala Bodinga, to buy the PDP form for Sokoto South senatorial zone.