Senior Special Assistant to the President on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu has made it clear that no amount of mischief by opposition and its friends in media can break the long standing relationship between President Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
In a statement today, June 27, Garba Shehu said that the relationship between the two “remains as strong as ever and between the two of them, only they know how they manage their enviable relationship.”
The Presidential spokesman, who reacted to series of innuendos in the media that the recent action of the President to save the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) from disintegration, wondered why the opposition and its media megaphones would read negative motive to it.
According to him, while the good intention of the President, in pulling APC from the precipice of collapse had 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 each another.
“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 will continue to fail
“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.”
