How Buhari Made Me Lower My Guard Ahead Of 2022 APC Presidential Primaries-Amaechi
ADC vice presidential candidate, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has carried out a postmortem of the APC 2022 presidential primary, noting that he lost the race because the then President Muhammadu Buhari, made him lower his guard.
The late president, he noted, had asked him not to campaign, promising to announce him as his preferred candidate .
Team@orientactualmags.com learned that the former Minister of Transportation, who disclosed this during an interview on Mainland 98.3FM’s The Situation Room programme in Lagos on Friday, added that this promise had made him refrain from lobbying delegates and negotiating political alliances ahead of the primary.
Mr Amaechi added that he had attached importance to the assurance gotten from the late Muhammadu Buhari being his boss and he had believed his endorsement would give him an advantage over other aspirants.
‘The first mistake that I made at that primary was that I listened to President Buhari. He said to me, Don’t campaign. Don’t do anything. I will announce you as my candidate.
He told me that. He put it in writing. When I write my book, I’ll put it out’ he said.
The former Rivers State governor said the promise of support gotten from the former president whom he had served as Director General of his campaign organization in 2015 and 2019, made him not negotiate political positions with governors and other influential party members which gave President Bola Tinubu an opportunity to build alliances ahead of the primary.
‘I didn’t do deals. So, I would have promised you vice-president, promise you SGF, and then would have gone for this primary, I would have possibly won. I would have had governors on my side.
Because I didn’t do deals, Tinubu had the chance to do deals’ he said.
Mr Amaechi also accused President Bola Tinubu of exploiting religious sentiments to secure support from delegates from the North ahead of the primary in question which made him lose one of his supporters, Mallam Nasir El-rufai to his camp..
A delegation of Southern Yoruba Muslims had according to him approached governors in the Northwest and appealed to them to support Tinubu on religious grounds.
‘El-Rufai was my supporter. El-Rufai, in a viral video, said this is done for the faith’ Amaechi said.
He however noted that he can never encourage promotion of religious identity for political support because it can deepen divisions in the country.
‘I wouldn’t want to run that kind of federation. Catholics are 35 million in Nigeria. I wouldn’t want to go to the Catholic Church and say, please announce me. Tell them that all Catholics must go out and vote Amaechi.
It will cause confusion. It will cause problems in the country. That makes me a nationalist’ he said.
It will be recalled that the APC presidential primary election held in Abuja on June 8 2022, had Asiwaju Bola Tinubu , the then Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and Mr Rotimi Amaechi among the contestants.
While Tinubu , who won party nomination and eventually won the presidential election held on February 25 , 2023, got 1,271 votes, Osinbajo had 235 votes while Amaechi got 316 votes-Team@orientactualmags.com Do you have any information you wish to share with us? Do you want us to cover your event or programme? Kindly send SMS to 08035023079, 08059100286, 09094171980 or get in touch via orientactualmag@gmail.com. Thank you
