President Muhammadu Buhari has stated his position of how the presidential flag bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) should emerge, saying he has no anointed candidate.
The President, who spoke while meeting with APC Governors of the party from the north, said no one would be allowed to impose a candidate on the party.
He insisted delegates would determine the fate of the aspirants.
The Governors visited the Buhari as part of last-minute efforts at deciding the nature and route the presidential convention would take.
The Governors, who were led to the meeting by the chairman of Norther Governors Forum and governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, however restated their resolve to see the party rotating its presidential ticket to the South.
Buhari, according to a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, told the Governor 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”.
The Buhari said 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.”
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.
Disclosing the outcome of their meeting with the President while speaking to State House Correspondents, the governors said they restated their call for the rotation of the presidential ticket of the party to the south, affirming that it was their decision, which they were standing by.
“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 reaffirm the position, but we apologized that the probe the statement leaked out before even our consultations with him.
“I am sure this 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”, he said.
Explaining the reason for the absence of the Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello, from the meeting, the Kaduna State governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufa’i, explained that the presidential aspirant/governor did not agree with the norther APC governor’s position.
“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”, he said.
The governors in attendance are Chairman of Progressive Governors Forum and governor of Kebbi state, Atiku Bagudu, chairman of Northern governors Forum and governor of Plateau State, Simeon Lalong, Abubakar Baduru (Jigawa) and Babagana Zulum (Borno).
Others are Aminu Bello Masari (Katsina), Abdullahi Sule (Nasarawa), Bello Matawale (Zamfara), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna), Abdullahi Ganduje (Kano), Yahaya Inuwa (Gombe), Abubakar Bello (Niger), Abdulrahman Abdulrazak (Kwarra) and the Yobe State governor, Mai Mala Buni.
Only Kogi Governor Yahaya Bello, was absent.
