Again, Buhari denies showdown with Tinubu

President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday denied severance with the national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. The President decried the misinterpretation of the very essence of the requests he made to the Emergency National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which were unanimously approved; he noted that they were aimed at pulling back the party, faced with an existential crisis from the brink of collapse, adding that the requests which included the dissolution of the National Working Committee (NWC), followed the constitution and took everyone along.

President Buhari lamented that while the action has been widely accepted with great relief by lovers of democracy and the rank and file of APC membership, “political vulturism masquerading as “smart analysis” is selling the commentary that this is a Buhari-Tinubu “showdown;” saying that nothing can be farther from the truth.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in a statement in Abuja on Saturday declared: “To put the records straight: In the formation of this great party and giving it leadership, President Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who are reckoned as the founding fathers of the APC are both inspired by democratic norms, national interest and not at all by partisan motivations. These are the qualities that have made them move past cynical distractions.

“They are in touch with one another. Their relationship remains as strong as ever and between the two of them, only they know how they manage their enviable relationship.

“Try as hard as they could, the opposition parties have used all their intellectuals and their supporters in the media to break this relationship and have failed. And they won’t.

“For President Buhari who has received much of the cynical commentary, Nigerians know him as someone who will not do anything with bad intentions. Neither will he do anything out of partisan motivations or for himself.

“This whole exercise, that should lead to massive reform and overhaul of the leadership of the party, as he said in that brilliant speech, was ”to save the APC from the imminent self-destruction. We have to move ahead. We have to take everyone with us and ensure that the party is run in accordance with democratic norms and with consensus. We have to work for the benefit of the country.”

He added that leaders of the party, who have received two successive massive mandates to govern the country and a majority of the states should be judged by how this exercise turns out in achieving these objectives, not cursed at the mere commencement of the process.