The presidency has said no one can claim to be responsible for President Muhammadu Buhari’s electoral success in 2015.
Recall that a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and presidential hopeful, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, had said without him, President Buhari wouldn’t have won the presidential election in 2015.
Tinubu spoke on last Thursday at a meeting with APC delegates in Ogun State.
Describing the election as a “battle”, Tinubu also spoke on how he “surrendered” the vice-presidential ticket to Yemi Osinbajo, when concerns were raised over a Muslim-Muslim ticket for the APC.
But, presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, in a statement on Monday, said it was perhaps not surprising that on the eve of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary election there are those running as candidates who wish to associate themselves with the President’s rise to elected office seven years ago.
According to him, 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.
He explained that 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.
He said: “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 the 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,” he added.
