Communications minister, Barrister Adebayo Shittu has made it clear that it is the All Progressives Congress (APC), at its primaries coming up this year, that will decide whether or not President Muhammadu Buhari should be made a candidate to re-contest the 2019 election for a second term.
The minister who spoke to news men today, Monday, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, insisted: “APC will decide the fate of Mr. President when the next round of primaries come.”
The minister, who was reacting to the points raised in a letter which the former President, Olusegun Obasanjo wrote to President Buhari, conceded that Obasanjo had the right to air his view on any topic as guaranteed by the constitution.
He however deplored Obasanjo’s attitude of sensationalising issues of national importance, adding that Obasanjo has no right to short change Nigerians by asking President Buhari not to seek for re-election in 2019.
Shittu, who acknowledged that sensationalism has been the stock in trade of Obasanjo in the past 30 years, said: “with due respect to General Obasanjo, if you take his history over the last 30 years, there is hardly any regime other than his own that he did not criticize except Sani Abacha, who didn’t wait for Obasanjo to criticize him before he was sent to the gulag.
“So many Nigerians know that Obasanjo enjoys this type of sensationalisation. In any case, no matter what impression you have of me, do you have a right to tell me not to contest an election? I mean we should talk like people who are educated, who know our left from the right.
“There are procedures for elections. President Buhari is a member of the APC and the APC has its rules and regulations as to how candidates will emerge, if members of the party feel that the president has not performed well enough, it is for them to show that during the primary election. Is not for anybody to short change Nigerians and prevent people from offering themselves for an election.
“In any case, since Obasanjo is no more a member of our party, with due respect to him it doesn’t lie in his mouth to tell us who among our party members or leaders to contest or not to contest. I think Nigerians should concede this privilege to we the members of APC to decide the fate of Mr. President when the next round of primaries come.”[myad]
