No one individual responsible for Buhari’s emergence, Presidency replies Tinubu

The presidency, yesterday, took a swipe at persons making claims of pulling the strings, behind the scene, which led to the emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential flag bearer, Muhammadu Buhari, in 2015.

In a veiled statement referring to a former Lagos State governor and presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and signed by Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, the Presidency said many people, not one single individual, could lay claim to the Buhari candidacy.

Recall that Tinubu recently declared that nobody in the party could match all the sacrifices he had made for continued existence of APC – from the days of the defunct Action Congress (AC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) before its final metamorphosis to the APC.

The Presidency said: “It is perhaps not surprising that on the eve of the APC flag bearer primary, there are those running as candidates who wish to associate themselves with the President’s rise to elected office seven years ago.

“There are many people who played parts large and small in his historic election in 2015, making history as the first opposition candidate to defeat a sitting president, with power changing hands peacefully at the ballot box.

“There are those who advised the President to run again; those who decided to build a political party – the APC – that could finally be the political vehicle capable of delivering victory where all other opposition parties and alliances before it had failed.

“Those decisions may have been agreed upon by a few. But they were delivered by thousands and voted for by tens of millions. No one can or should claim to have made this possible. Yet, as important as that moment was, it is not what should decide the next general election.

“What matters is the future: the policy platforms, the ideas, the drive, and the determination to take over the President’s stewardship of our country and build upon his legacy to make our country better than it has ever been.

“The person most demonstrable in those qualities is the one to lead our party and our country forward.”

MEANWHILE, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, yesterday, said the bid by APC to impose a presidential candidate would not augur well for the future aspirations of Nigerians.

Atiku, in a statement by his media adviser, Paul Ibe, said: “Such a candidate cannot represent the future of the hope and brighter aspirations that Nigerians look forward to after the termination of the current state of anomie which the ruling party is known for.

“If the charade that the APC calls a presidential convention primary election is merely to handpick an anointed candidate, it is important to ask the managers of the ruling party why they elected to slate the so-called convention for a working day, thereby disrupting economic activities around the Federal Capital Territory.”

The former Vice President noted that should APC delegates ask themselves what they have been brought to Abuja for, they should know that the primaries of their party is not about any of the individuals vying for the presidential ticket, but a referendum on APC’s scorecard in the past seven years.

He said: “Should the delegates be honest with themselves about the current state of affairs in the country under the watch of their party, they ought to know that allowing the APC to remain in power one more day after May 29, next year, is an unpatriotic decision to make.”

He added: “Whoever is ‘handpicked’ as the APC presidential candidate in such despotic process cannot be any different from the authoritarian fervour of the APC establishment.”