President Buhari Angry With Kogi APC Guber Candidate, Prince Audu; Says He Has Not Endorsed His Candidature

President Muhammadu Buhari has put to lie the news making the rounds that he has endorsed the candidature of All Progressives Congress (APC), Prince Abubakar Audu for the November governorship election in the state.
This is even as the President has given order to Prince Audu and his campaign team to remove his (Buhari’s) pictures from his (Prince Audu’s) campaign materials.
“He has directed the Director General, Prince Audu Abubakar Campaign Organization to comply with this directive effective immediately.”
A statement fby special adviser to President Buhari on media and publicity, Femi Adesina said that the President has not endorsed the candidature of both the APC Bayelsa and Kogi governorships.
“He is yet to do the official endorsement pending when all the conditions of His Excellency are met.”
Only recently at an APC stakeholders meeting, the president backed out of the National campaign committee of Prince Abubakar Audu based on the integrity of the candidate and his unconvinced answer to the allegation of unaccounted 11 billion naira by the EFCC.”
Adesina added: “The attention of the president has been drawn to the pictures and news flying around that President Muhammadu Buhari has adopted the candidature of Prince Audu Abubakar. “Let it be known that the President has not endorsed the candidature of both the APC Bayelsa and Kogi candidates; he is yet to do the official endorsement pending when all the conditions of His Excellency are met.”
It would be recalled that Vice President Yemi Osibanjo was said to head the National Campaign Committee for the coming Kogi governorship election for APC but he opted out at the last minute of the inauguration of the committee in Abuja.
This is even as the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, has appointed Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State as the chairman of the campaign committee to replace the Vice President.
It was learnt that Prince Audu is not sure that his party members who contested the party primaries with him will not be spoilers as most losers do during elections in the country.
It was learnt that before the primaries, no fewer than 10 of the aspirants accused Prince Audu of cloning permanent voters’ cards to hand over to his loyalists for proxy vote. While it is possible that members of the group were overwhelmed by the former governor’s charisma, it does not rule out enemy action from some of them just as others may have since accepted the result of the primaries in good faith. [myad]