Says president has no anointed candidate
Northern governors insist on power shift to South
The Presidency on Monday debunked claims by a former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, that he made the electoral victory and success of President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress, in 2015 possible.
The Presidency also made it clear that President Buhari has no anointed candidate and he is ready to ensure a level playing field for all aspirants in the ongoing national convention to pick the flag bearer of the party in 2023.
In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, asserted that contrary to the claim that only an individual was responsible for the feat, “No one can or should claim to have made this possible.”
The statement which did not mention Tinubu or any other person reads: “It is perhaps not surprising that on the eve of the All Progressives Congress (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,” it concluded.
In a related development, Buhari also on Monday cleared all doubts about where he stands on the choice of a presidential candidate for the governing APC declaring before the party’s 14 governors of northern states that he has “no preferred candidate,” and has “anointed no one,” and is determined to ensure that “there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party.”
Speaking at a meeting with the governors at the State House, Abuja, Buhari said the party is important and its members must be respected and made to feel they are important.
The President said he had a clear mind about what he was doing and asked the APC governors to feel the same way: “You were elected as I was. Have a clear mind as I have. God gave us the chance; we have no reason to complain.
We must be ready to take pain as we take joy. Allow the delegates to decide. The Party must participate, nobody will appoint anybody.”
Earlier in their addresses, the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Governor Simon Bako Lalong and Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu of the Progressive Governors Forum, said they had come to affirm the position of the Northern Governors that the party’s candidate in the presidential election shall come from the southern part of the country.
They apologised to the President for the leakage of their signed memorandum which was not in support of any particular candidate and gave assurances to the President on their readiness to accept his leadership on the matter.
