President Mohammedu Buhari has dissociated himself from the purported endorsement of Ahmed Lawan as the consensus presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, ahead of the party primaries.
Earlier this evening, Abdullahi Adamu, APC National Chairman had announced Lawan, the incumbent Senate President as the party’s consensus candidate.
But the President at a meeting with the Northern Governors at the State House, Abuja on Monday said he has no ”preferred candidate” and has “anointed no one,”
According to him, he is determined to ensure that “there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party.”
The party, he said 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.”
Earlier in their addresses, the 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.
