The Presidency has declared that President Muhammadu Buhari’s dissolution of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not split him politically with another founder of the party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The declaration on Saturday evening came via press statement issued by presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, which reacted to reports that the action initiated by the President was to whittle the influence of Tinubu and thwart his 2023 presidential ambition.
Shehu stressed that the measure was taken in the overall interest of the party in line with the democratic principles shared by Buhari and Tinubu, who he described as the founding fathers of APC.
He therefore dismissed analysts who have been touting the recent upheavals in the party and attempts to resolve them as “Buhari-Tinubu showdown” as being far from the truth.
According to Shehu, the two leaders of the APC “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”.
The statement reads: “The very essence of the requests put to the Emergency National Executive Committee meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by President Muhammadu Buhari, which were unanimously approved aim to pull back the party, faced with an existential crisis from the brink of collapse, follow the constitution and take everyone along.
“While this action has been widely accepted with great relief by lovers of democracy and the rank and file of the membership, we are concerned that political vulturism masquerading as ‘smart analysis’ is selling the commentary that this is a Buhari-Tinubu showdown’. Nothing can be farther from the truth.
“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’.
“The 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.”
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