You Did Not Make Buhari President, Presidency Replies Tinubu

In response to a statement by ex-Lagos governor Bola Tinubu who said he helped President Muhammadu Buhari emerge president in 2015, the presidency said millions of Nigerians brought Mr Buhari into power and not just one person.

Garba Shehu, Mr Buhari’s spokesperson, said Monday that many people played parts, large and small, in Mr Buhari’s “historic election in 2015;” thus making history as the first opposition candidate to defeat a sitting president “with power changing hands peacefully at the ballot box.”

PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Tinubu had said he brought the president out of retirement and helped him to win the election in 2015.

He was addressing delegates in Ogun State when he said Mr Buhari, after losing the 2003, 2007 and 2011 presidential elections, vowed not to contest again but he (Mr Tinubu) went to Katsina to persuade him to contest and subsequently supported him to win in 2015.

Mr Tinubu later released a statement saying he did not mean to disparage the president.

At the Ogun meeting, Mr Tinubu also said he nominated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as the president’s running mate.

But a statement by presidential media aide, Garba Shehu, described Mr Tinubu’s utterances as unsurprising.

“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.”

Mr Shehu said as important as that moment was, it is not what should decide the next general election and what matters is the future: the policy platforms, the ideas, the drive, and the determination to take over the president’s stewardship.

“The person most demonstrable in those qualities is the one to lead our party and our country forward,” he said.

-Premium Times