President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday declared that he has no preferred candidate as the All Progressives Congress (APC) holds it national convention to pick its flag bearer for the 2023 election.
The president cleared the air following reports that the National Chairman of the party, Senator Abdulahi Adamu, had announced president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, as the consensus candidate of the ruling party.
According to a statement issued by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media & Publicity), Buhari gave the clarification during a meeting with APC governors of northern states at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday, saying that he has “no preferred candidate,” and has “anointed no one.”
The statement expressed the president’s determination to ensure that “there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party.”
According the statement, while speaking with the governors, President Buhari said the party is important and its members must be respected, and made to feel they are important.
The Presidency informed that the president said he had a clear mind about what he was doing and asked the APC governors to feel the same way, telling the party to allow delegates to decide.
“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,” it quoted Buhari as saying.
• As Northern APC governors insist on power shift to South
Earlier in their addresses, the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Governor Simon 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.
Addressing correspondents after the meeting with the president, 13 of the governors in attendance insited on their position to cede the presidential ticket of the party to the South.
The chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Lalong, affirmed that the president has not anointed any of the aspirants as the flag bearer of the party.
He revealed that President Buhari had requested the governors to have a meeting with the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party to resolve the issue of consensus candidate through democratic means.
Lalong said they told the president of their decision to ensure that power returns to the South for the sake of equity and unity of the country.
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The Plateau governor stated: “We had a meeting this afternoon with the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, our dear President Muhammadu Buhari and this meeting is also in line with part of the consultations that Mr President had.
“Of course, Mr. President had a meeting with us governors and series of people, but at the APC Northern Governors’ Forum, we sat down, we reviewed a lot of things in this country and we discussed at length about the unity of this country, about the need for progress and the need for inclusiveness, and also the need for accommodation.
“We sat down in the last few days and 13 out of 14 governors agreed. We took a decision to go and advise Mr. President. While we were on our way to advise Mr. President, I think part of the discussions that we had leaked out to the press. Well, we still went ahead and we told Mr President. Mr. President, being a democrat, said no, he must listen to us, he would listen to us. And so, Mr President granted the opportunity today.
“Our mission today is to reaffirm our position on that statement. We also apologized to him that that statement was made by all of us and we reaffirmed the position, but we apologized that the statement leaked out before even our consultations with him.
“However, it is now in the message, not the messenger. So, Mr President was very happy. He took our position and out of that discussion, Mr President, as a believer in the democratic process, believes that any candidate must emerge through a transparent process and the emphasis that Mr President told us that for this election, for now, he has no anointed candidate and therefore directed that the Progressive Governors Forum meet with the National Working Committee of the party to agree and proffer further solutions and recommendations for his own succession.
“I am sure this will may be the last of consultations. So, we are directed that after this, our chairman of Progressive Governors’ Forum has also summoned a meeting for five o’clock today and after that meeting, we’ll make again further suggestions to Mr. President.
“For emphasis, those of you who read it, I have a copy of what we wrote, which was already out of press, and I said we wrote it and we stand by it; that in the interest of unity, in the interests of peace, we recommended that and also justice, our recommendation is that the next President should come from the south.
“I told you that the President believes in the democratic process, but even during the democratic process, that are consultations, that consensus, is also part of the democratic process. Even our constitution provides for that; it says consensus and then the election, either direct or indirect.
“So, what we’re doing is part of the build-up towards the election. What we’re also saying is a recommendation as we think that will bring out a very peaceful process.”
Also speaking Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State said the decision of the governors is binding on all of them including Governor Yayaya Bello of Kogi State who is insisting on contesting the presidential ticket of the APC.
He said: “We met before coming to meet with Mr President, we met all of us, including the governor of Kogi State. As you can see, he’s not the only aspirant. The governor of Jigawa State is also an aspirant and he’s here with us and we met. But the governor of Kogi State chose to excuse himself from meeting with Mr President because he believes that he does not agree with our position.
“There are 14 APC governors out of the 19 Northern states. 13 of us are on one page on this subject and we all came to see the President, but the governor of Kogi State excused himself and it is within his democratic rights to excuse himself. But 12 out of 14 is a supermajority. 13 out of 14 is an even bigger supermajority and the 13 of us met with the President today. What our leader has communicated to you is a summary of the discussions with Mr President.”
Apart from Lalong and el-Rufai, other governors present at the meeting with the president were Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano), Aminu Masari (Katsina), Abubakar Bello (Niger), Sule Abdullahi (Nasarawa), Bello Matawalle (Zamfara), Inuwa Yahaya (Gombe), Babagana Zulum (Borno), abubakar Badaru (Jigawa0, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq (Kwara), Simon Lalong (Plateau), Atiku Bagudu (Kebbi) and Mai Mala Buni (Yobe).