Ahead of the 2023 general elections, President Muhammadu Buhari stated on Wednesday that he would not support candidates of other political parties against those of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The statement from the president came on the heels of increasing insinuations that some stalwarts of the ruling party would clandestinely support the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, against his APC counterpart, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Aside from Atiku and Tinubu, other frontline presidential candidates include Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP).
Chieftains of the PDP loyal to Atiku have told this paper that a section of the Presidency is romancing the former vice president to support his candidacy during the February 25, 2023, presidential election.
One of them, a Kaduna-based stalwart of the party, stated that those in the Presidency who support Atiku were among those who promoted the candidacy of the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, during the APC’s presidential primaries.
Recall that Lawan was promoted as the candidate for the Presidency, a development that made a group of northern governors write President Buhari for the party’s presidential ticket to be zoned to the South. At the primaries, the former Lagos State governor defeated Lawan and others to pick the party’s ticket.
Buhari, according to a statement by Garba Shehu, one of his spokespersons, said he will support only candidates fielded by the APC in the forthcoming elections.
Titled, “For 2023, No Villa Candidates, only APC Candidates,” Buhari in the statement, reassured APC members that he remains a “disciplined soldier” of the APC.
Shehu said the president was assured that he would continue to support the party at all levels to enforce discipline, synchronisation, and coordination.
He added that President Buhari also directed officials in and around the Presidential Villa, as well as those engaging in loose talk, to refrain from making controversial statements that could ultimately harm the party and the government, thereby providing the opposition with a weapon to use against the administration, the party, or its candidates in the upcoming elections.
The presidential spokesman stated that this was a warning to decamped party members and others who were still in court against the official candidates of the APC, informing them that they are on their own and that nobody outside the party’s tent should attribute their actions to President Buhari.
He said the president wished to be quoted as saying that he remained the “Occupant of the high office of the president by the Grace of God who used the instrumentality of the APC to bring him to power with a historic verdict in 2015.
“In 2019, he was returned with a bigger majority. For the first time, a non-PDP government came to power with a huge majority after 16 years of the Fourth Republic. His constant refrain is: ‘I will not betray or undermine my party by supporting candidates other than those of the APC’.
“This statement is not against any particular candidate. However, our stand is clear that only those candidates fielded by the All Progressives Congress, APC, will enjoy the support of the president, and they are the ones he will campaign for. However, we welcome support for our candidates at all levels by other parties,” the statement added.
