Lawan: What Buhari told northern governors

After APC chairman Abdullahi Adamu divided the NWC with the announcement of Sen President Ahmed Lawan as President Muhammadu Buhari’s consensus candidate, there have been a series of denial and rebuttal.

Buhari himself has spoken.

“The party is important and its members must be respected and made to feel they are important,” he told the APC governors from the north who insisted power must rotate south..

According to a press statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity, Garba Shehu,  titled, Buhari is not imposing any candidate.

“I have anointed no one, there shall be no imposition, Buhari said.

The statement read:“President Muhammadu Buhari, Monday afternoon cleared all doubts about where he stands on the choice of a presidential candidate for the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, declaring before the party’s 14 governors of northern states that he has ‘no preferred candidate’, and has ‘anointed no one’, and is determined to ensure that ‘there shall be no imposition of any candidate on the party’.

“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,” the statement added