APC primary: I expected Buhari to choose his successor – Tinubu

Ilesanmi AdekanbiJune 18, 2022

1 minute read

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has said that he and other presidential aspirants of the party pleaded with and expected President Muhammadu Buhari to pick an anointed candidate for the 2023 presidential election.

Bola Tinubu defeated his closest challengers and former Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi and Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, to emerge as the candidate of the ruling party.

Prior to the primary, there were rumours that the President would name his successor, following his meeting with the Progressives Governors Forum, who he pleaded to allow him to name his preferred candidate.

And in a letter to President Buhari on Saturday, the former Lagos State Governor thanked President Buhari for maintaining a neutral stance and allowing all the aspirants to battle it out at the primary.

“Your Excellency, one must admire the sense of purpose, composure, and maturity you demonstrated in the weeks and months preceding the primary elections of our great party. As aspirants and party leaders, we all pleaded with you to “choose” your successor,” part of his letter read.

“Naturally, this is expected especially in African democracy. Up until the 6th of June, 2022, the day of the APC Presidential primaries, the whole of Nigeria, including myself, waiting for you to announce your preferred candidate. All of us thought and believed this was a very simple matter,” he added.

“However, it was only as the primary went into the night and as the candidates walked up to the podium and spoke that I fully and truly appreciated your position and stance to be neutral and non-aligned to any of us.

“As the hours rolled by that evening, it became clear to me that all of us were your preferred candidates. As you captured it aptly in your letter to me, the ‘spirit’ of 2013 and 2014 when we created and built APC was there for all to see.”