President Muhammadu Buhari has said that contrary to insinuations that he was working to extend his stay in office beyond May 2023, he had no such plan and that he was not interested in staying beyond his term.
Buhari, who set the record straight Friday in his address at the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting in Abuja, said he had no plans to thwart Nigeria’s constitution by contesting for third term in office and he would leave by 2023.
The President however, expressed the optimism that his party, the APC, would retain power in 2023. He tasked all the leaders of the party, specifically NEC members to show more seriousness and dominate politically in their constituencies.
He stressed that it would be shameful if APC collapsed after his tenure as according to him, history would not forgive anyone who would have tried to aid the collapse of the party.
“At the meeting of the caucus, I made some comments, which are still relevant here but to me, the most important is that every member of NEC should reposition himself or herself to make sure that you have dominated your constituency politically. The aim is that, as I mentioned yesterday, history will not be fair to us outright if the APC collapses at the end of this term.
“I am not going to make the mistake of attempting a third term. Beside the age, I swore by the holy book that I would go by the constitution and the constitution said two terms. I know that I’m in my last term and I can’t afford to be reckless because I’m not going to ask for anybody’s vote.
“I want you to read the constitution. I made sure that when the constitution says the election as we did it the last time will start in 18 months’ time or 20 months’ time. It is going to be done,” he said.
According to him, “Anybody who fails to maintain the respect of his constituents and is thrown out, it’s his problem. Like the Chairman has said, all those who left us to the upper house, none of them were voted by his constituents.
You want to take our people for granted but they know what they are doing.”
James Kwen, Abuja
