Confusion in APC as Buhari disowns Adamu on favoured candidate

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday met behind closed doors with Northern Governors elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressive Congress ( APC), where he denies “having an anointed candidate”.

This comes after the party chairman, Abdullahi Adamu announced Senate president Ahmed Lawan as consensus candidate.

A statement by Garba Shehu, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari, has cleared all doubts about where he stands on the choice of a presidential candidate for the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).

The President declared before the party’s 13 APC’s governors of northern states, that he has “no preferred candidate,” and has “anointed no one,” and is determined to ensure that “there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party.”

While speaking at the meeting with the Governors at the State House, the president said the party is important and its members must be respected, and made to feel they are important”

The President who stated that he “had a clear mind” about what he was doing, asked the APC governors to feel the same way, adding that “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, Governor Simon Bako 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.

According to the chairman of the Northern Governors Forum (PGF) and Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, who led the team to the meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Monday, the president has not anointed any of the aspirants as the flag bearer of the party.

Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state, while addressing Stare House journalists after their meeting with the president, said Buhari 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.

The President had in the last one week , intensified efforts to ensure the outcome of a consensus candidate for the ruling APC, ahead of the convention.

The new electoral act provides that for consensus to take place all the aspirants must sign an agreement accepting the person as a consensus candidate for the election. In this case if the aspirants disagree then it won’t work.