BREAKING: PRESIDENCY CRITICIZES TINUBU FOR CLAIMING CREDIT FOR BUHARI'S VICTORY

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By Adeniyi Onaara

No one can or should claim to have single-handedly engineered the emergence of Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) as President in the 2015 general elections, the Presidency declared on Monday in Abuja.

The Presidency said in a statement signed by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President for Media and Publicity, that the past should not determine the outcome of the next general election, and that what matters now is electing a candidate who will “make our country better than it has ever been.”

‘Comment on a statement made by a major APC flagbearer candidate,’ the statement reads.

According to reports, Bola Tinubu, the former governor of Lagos State, had raised some dust last Thursday when he claimed that without him, Buhari would not have emerged the president in 2015.

The presidential candidate made the remark while speaking to APC delegates at the Presidential Lodge in Abeokuta, the capital of Ogun State, ahead of the party’s primary elections.

“It is perhaps not unexpected that on the eve of the All Progressives Congress flagbearer primary, there are people running as candidates who desire to link themselves with the President’s rise to elected office seven years ago,”

Many people played major and minor roles in his historic election in 2015, when he became the first opposition candidate to unseat an incumbent president in a peaceful transfer of power 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.”

It added that as crucial as the 2015 victory 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,” the Presidency added.