2023 presidential election: No regret pushing for northern candidate – Former APC Chair

Immediate past national chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Abdullahi Adamu, says he has no regret backing a northern aspirant for the 2023 presidential poll before the party’s primary election.

Adamu, a former governor of Nasarawa State, said he originally preferred the emergence of a northerner as the party’s candidate because he is also from the north, adding that nothing was wrong with that as many Nigerians are also promoting regional agenda.

Adamu, who was be backing the presidential ambition of Senator Ahmed Lawan as against President Bola Tinubu before the general election, stated this in an interview with Daily Trust.

He said : “From my consultations, and from the advice I was getting, I am a northerner and I would go for a northerner; and no apologies for that. I have never hidden this.

Asked if the push for Ahmed Lawan as APC presidential candidate was his initiative, he said : “The party chairman has a role, but with a ruling party, I could not take it on myself to float Ahmed Lawan’s name.

” Well, of course, I take responsibility as party chairman, but nobody with maturity in politics and governance will say that Abdullahi Adamu, as the chairman of the party, would just get up and say this is my presidential candidate. It doesn’t add up.

” Of course, there were processes. I don’t want to go back on that. What I detested about this whole setting was that people who wanted to win favours with President Ahmed Bola Tinubu continued saying there was cold war between me and him and making so much capital out of it.

“I am an established person from my root, right from birth. I come from a royal family and I am proud of it. I was born at a time when there was a northern Nigeria. I was brought into its values even though I worked mainly in the private sector. I saw myself first and foremost as a northerner in Nigeria and I have no apologies to anybody on this.

“But times are changing, if you want to take a count of people with the same feeling, attitude, commitment and loyalty to the North, you would have a problem.

” But go down South, especially the South West, and you would see that people are not ashamed of beating their chests and telling you who they are and where they come from and what they stand for. Go to the East, till today, we are losing lives in the East for what they believe in, not here.”

On why most fellow politicians from the North backed out from his plan, the former Nasarawa West Senator l said :
” I believe very strongly that they should have done better than they did; but I have no regret. The reason I have no regret is that only what God wills will happen.”

Also asked on his presidential ambition during the 2007 election, Adamu said he opted out of the race following former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s withdrawal of his earlier support.

His words :”Obasanjo called me on May 31, 2005, but unknown to me, he had called Peter Odili of Rivers State. I will never forget. I was in Lafia.

” I got there before Odili and was in his waiting room. Odili arrived about five minutes after me and he called us in and we exchanged pleasantries.

” He said, ‘I know you to be best of friends. You know I am midway in my second term and I have to start thinking of who succeeds me’. We looked at each other and sat properly.

” He continued, ‘I believe you can work together; and you should start planning how you work. And don’t tell anybody. You know I am from the South and a Christian, so there is no way I will get my fellow southerner to succeed me. Nor will I encourage a Christian to succeed me. I am sure you understand this. That’s my trust. You can start working together’. We said yes.

“Obasanjo is alive and I know your capacity; you can interview him. We thanked him, and within a short period after that, we were sent on missions.

” We started preparing.

“Obasanjo did not talk to anyone of us about (his change of plan) until a Thursday or Wednesday before the convention. I went to Abuja and was coming back to Lafia when my phone rang. It was Obasanjo and he invited me to his office.

” So, I went back; and as I was entering, I saw Odili coming out of his consulting room and his face wasn’t what I would like to see. He didn’t look happy. I shook hands with him and asked what happened, but he said, ‘When you come out, we will talk.’

” I went in and Obasanjo told me that if the presidency belonged to him, he would have given it to me and nobody else, but the committee had finished its assessment and I missed it. He said I should leave it for my brother.

” I thanked him and said that power came from God. But I told him to do me a favour because I had children and well-wishers I owed a duty of some level of disclosure, having contested and I got this far. I asked what happened.

” He got up from his seat and there was a voluminous file by the corner. It was a kind of compilation and there were some paginations. He picked it and showed me where it was written that ‘the governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Adamu, is very loyal governor…’

(DailyTrust)

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