2019: There’s No Automatic Ticket For Buhari – Tinubu

BY SEGUN ADEBAYO, ABUJA – Despite subterranean attempts by governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to ensure President Muhammadu Buhari gets an automatic ticket for the 2019 Presidential poll, the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday foreclosed such a possibility, insisting that the party was poised to “follow the normal democratic process in choosing its flag bearer.”

Debunking insinuations in some quarters that the leadership of the party had endorsed Buhari as its sole candidate 2019, the former Lagos State governor said the position of the party’s leadership on the matter is in variance with the position of the APC governors who have since endorsed Buhari as the sole candidate of the party for the 2019 election.

The APC National Leader, who held a closed door meeting with leaders of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, the Afenifere, at the residence of the leader of the organisation, Pa. Reuben Fasoranti in Akure, the Ondo State capital, said Buhari was a firm believer in following normal democratic process.

“No governors can appropriate the power of endorsement to themselves. Buhari is a believer in the process. The Buhari, I know, believes in the rule of law. We wanted him even before the last convention and primary of the party and Akeredolu is here standing with me, he was not the governor then. He was one of the leading delegates that voted properly and Buhari was a clear winner.

“We followed all the constitutional provision and an individual or group’s opinion does not really matter at this stage, Buhari will want a normal process. Buhari that, I know, who says he will lose at any convention? But if the national body, the NEC (National Executive Committee) and all of us as members endorsed him as our single candidate, we will not be violating INEC regulations, we will not be violating our party constitution.

“What you are hearing is just a campaign by other people who might like to do so. Buhari has not excluded anybody, and he has not infringed on anybody’s ambition if there is. We cannot be sycophantic about it.”