The presidency on Monday replied former Governor of Lagos State Bola Ahmed Tinubu when it said “millions of Nigerians” and not one individual elected President Muhammadu Buhari into office in 2015.
According to the presidency, no single individual can claim to have been responsible for Buhari’s emergence as president.
Tinubu had in an outburst in Abeokuta when he met with APC delegates ahead of Primaries in Abuja laid claims to helping Buhari to power in 2015 after Buhari’s several failed attempts.
In what clearly is a response to Tinubu’s statement, the presidency in a veiled manner said it was not surprised that on the eve of primaries for the All Progressives Congress (APC) standard bear, some contestants are trying to associate themselves and attribute Buhari’s victory at the polls to themselves
seven years after.
According to the Presidency, there
are many people who played parts large and small in Buhari’s 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.
The Presidency said even though
those decisions may have been agreed upon by a few, they were delivered by thousands and voted for by tens of millions.
It further stressed that “No one can or should claim to have made the possible”.
The presidency said as important as that moment was it is not what should decide the next general election.
The statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu noted that what matters is the future: the policy platforms, the ideas, the drive, and the determination to take over the President’s stewardship of Nigeria and building upon Buhari’s legacy to make the country better than it has ever been.
The statement ends on a final note that ” the person most demonstrable in those qualities is the one to lead APC and Nigeria forward.
Editor, Omor Bazuaye
