‘No one can take credit for Buhari’s victory at polls, only Nigerians,’ Presidency takes swipe at Tinubu

The presidency said on Monday no single individual can claim the credit for President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the 2015 election.

The Presidency was reacting to comments credited to the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Bola Tinubu, on Buhari’s success in the country’s presidential election of seven years ago.

Tinubu, who addressed the APC delegates in Abeokuta, Ogun State, last week, said Buhari would not have emerged the country’s president in 2015 without his support.

He added that the president had given hope in the presidency after suffering successive defeats in 2003, 2007 and 2011.

Tinubu said: “If not for me that led the war front, Buhari wouldn’t have emerged. He contested first, second and third times, but lost. He even said on television that he won’t contest again.

“But I went to his home in Katsina. I told him you will contest and win, but you won’t joke with the matters of the Yorubas. Since he has emerged I have not been appointed minister. I didn’t get any contract.

“This time, it’s Yoruba turn and in Yorubaland, it’s my tenure.”

However, in a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Garba Shehu, the presidency said millions of Nigerians elected Buhari into office.

READ ALSO: Buhari meets northern APC governors ahead of presidential primaries

The statement read: “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.

“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.”

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