I’ve No Preferred Candidate – Buhari Insists

Posted by Tolulope Ogugua Featured, Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Monday, June 6th, 2022

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – President Muhammadu Buhari has again, cleared all doubts about his stand on the choice of a presidential candidate for the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), insisting that he had “anointed no one,”

The President’s spokesman, Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement in Abuja, said Buhari made the clarification when he met with the party’s 14 governors of northern states in the State House, Abuja, on Monday.

Shehu quoted the president as saying that he had “no preferred candidate,” and “anointed no one.”

According to the president, he is determined to ensure that “there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party,” adding that 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 the 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, Gov. Simon Lalong and Gov. 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.”

The governors 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.

NAN