The Presidency has tactically taken a swipe at the National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, countering that no single person can take credit for President Muhammadu Buhar’si electoral victory and success recorded so far in the party.
Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu threw the jab in a statement he signed Monday.
The statement apparently is a reply to Tinubu’s outburst last week Thursday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital – stressing that he was behind the emergence of President Buhari in 2015 as the APC Presidential candidate and the party’s victory in the general polls.
The statement read in part: “It is perhaps not surprising that on the eve of the All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer 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”.
Garba wrote: “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.
“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 Presidency urged Tinubu to demonstrate those good “qualities to lead our party and our country forward”..