This one sitting behind me, Dapo, can he say he can be the governor without me? We were together at the MKO Abiola Stadium, he was intimidated, they didn’t want to give him the party’s flag. I was the one who handed the flag to him. He knows that he cannot be the governor without the help of God and my support.
If not for me who stood behind Buhari, he wouldn’t have become the president. He tried the first time, he failed, the second time, he failed, the third time, he failed. He even wept on national television and vowed never to contest again but I went to meet him in Kaduna and told him he will run again; I will stand by you and you will win, but you must not joke with Yorubas and he agreed.
Since he became the president, I have never got ministerial slots, I didn’t collect any contract, I have never begged for anything from him, it is the turn of Yoruba; it is my turn. Please, stand by me, you delegates who are here from Ogun State, you shall not become delicates. Don’t be carried away by ‘he is our son’.”
However, during a lecture on “President Buhari’s Contribution to National Development,” the former SGF recalled how, in early 2013, while leading the now-defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Buhari had formally called for and backed the formation of a CPC merger committee. This was part of a larger process to build a coalition that included the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) faction, and elements of the ruling party through the breakaway “new PDP” group.
“We also had our own transition Merger Committee, the ANPP, and a fraction of others. And elements of the ruling party, through the breakaway New PDP group, his endorsement and participation, along with other party leaders such as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the ANPP lent credence, credibility, and direction to the merger, helping to unify disparate party factions under the banner of the All Progressives Congress APC. That coalition-building paved the way for the first democratic defeat of an incumbent ruling party in Nigeria’s history. President Buhari’s integrity, national stature and disciplined messaging were central to that breakthrough”, said Mustapha.
According to the former SGF, who stated that he had no intention of stirring up controversy, Buhari brought 12.5 million votes to the table, while the combined votes of the merging parties gave him 3.5 million.
“Not only that, for us in the ACN, I do not intend to stir any controversy, but I will make bold to state this—that the merger in 2013 was midwife to present a Buhari or create a Buhari Presidency because we looked at the statistics of the votes that were coming to the table. In the 2003 election, it was the Obasanjo/Buhari presidential contest where Buhari recorded 2.7 million votes. In the next election, he got 12.7 million votes. In 2007, it came to 6.6 million, it went back to 12.2 million in 2011.
When we were conceptualizing the merger, what would give us a headstart and obviously, it was at the back of our consciousness that the merger with the CPC, though it had only one state, the ACN had six states, ANPP three states, and when you sum up the total votes that gave us the presidency in 2015, the aggregate of the total votes was 15.4 million. So, basically, what we brought to the table after the merger outside the Buhari 12.5 million votes was three million”
About the Author
