There shall be no imposition of candidate, says Buhari on APC ticket

President Muhammadu Buhari says there will be no imposition of presidential candidate on the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 elections.

According to a statement by Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, Buhari said this on Monday at a meeting with APC governors from the northern region.

The president’s statement comes amid reports that Abdullahi Adamu, APC national chairman, has endorsed Senate President Ahmad Lawan as the party’s consensus candidate.

But in the statement by Shehu, Buhari said he has “anointed no one”, adding that the choice of party members must be respected.

“You were elected as I was. Have a clear mind as I have. God gave us the chance; we have no reason to complain. We must be ready to take pain as we take the joy. Allow the delegates to decide. The Party must participate, nobody will appoint anybody,” the president was quoted as saying.

Voting for the party’s flagbearer for the 2023 presidential election is scheduled for Tuesday.

Meanwhile, amid the confusion over if any aspirant has been disqualified, John Oyegun, chairman of the party’s screening committee, had said the 13 of the 23 presidential hopefuls who participated in the screening made the panel’s final shortlist.

“We have a shortlist which brought the number severely down to 13. We could have cut it a little shorter, but we wanted a pedigree of younger elements to surface, for them to be seen, for them to be noticed, and who knows? We hand them over to the party. And it is for the party to decide who their preferred candidate will be,” Oyegun had said.