President Muhammadu Buhari has hit back at ex-Governor of Lagos and APC presidential aspirant, Bola Tinubu, who sensationally claimed during an infamous outburst last week, that he made Buhari President in 2015.
Addressing delegates in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, on June 3, Tinubu described how Buhari wept after losing three previous national elections.
According to Tinubu; “If I didn’t lead from the battlefront, Buhari wouldn’t have won the 2015 election. Buhari contested and lost the presidential election three times and cried on national television. He even said on television that he won’t contest again.
“But I went to his home in Kaduna, I told him you would contest and win, but you won’t joke with Yoruba-land.
“Since he emerged President, I have not been appointed Minister. I didn’t get nor request a contract. I did not beg for soup, garri nor fura from him. And I did not borrow money from there.”
In his response issued through his spokesperson, Garba Shehu, President Buhari said millions of Nigerians made him President in 2015, and not Tinubu.
“It is perhaps not surprising that on the eve of the All Progressives Congress (APC) flag-bearer primary there are those running as candidates who wish to associate themselves with the President’s rise to elected office seven years ago.
“There are many people who played parts large and small in his historic election in 2015, making history as the first opposition candidate to defeat a sitting president with power changing hands peacefully at the ballot box.
“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.
“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 this possible,” the statement reads.
In yet another hint that he won’t want Tinubu as his successor, Buhari added that:
“Yet as important as that moment was, it is not what should decide the next general election. What matters is the future: the policy platforms, the ideas, the drive, and the determination to take over the President’s stewardship of our country and build upon his legacy to make our country better than it has ever been.
“The person most demonstrable in those qualities is the one to lead our party and our country forward.”
Tinubu did try to walk back his comments last weekend, saying he has huge respect and regard for the president. The APC has however vowed to punish him for his incendiary remarks.
The governing APC will pick its presidential nominee this week at the Eagle Square in the nation’s capital city of Abuja.
The winner of the APC presidential contest would square up to Atiku Abubakar of the opposition PDP and more than a dozen other presidential aspirants from other political parties.