‘Placeholder’: VP candidate selection followed careful legal advice, says Adamu

Abdullahi Adamu, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says choosing a vice-presidential candidate for the party was done after “careful” legal consultations.

Adamu spoke on Monday while addressing state house correspondents after accompanying Biodun Oyebanji, governor-elect of Ekiti, on a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari.

TheCable had reported that Kabiru Faskari, an APC chieftain, had said Kabir Masari was chosen as the running mate to Bola Tinubu, presidential candidate of the party.

Although APC has not officially confirmed if the VP candidate is a placeholder or not, there have been speculations on the possibility that Masari may not want to step down if he is indeed standing in as Tinubu’s running mate.

Speaking on the development, Adamu said such speculations should be dismissed.

“We are not in the speculative world. We are governed by the laws of the land. There’s nothing our presidential candidate has done with regards to returning his forms that is not within the confines of the law of the land,” the APC chairman said.

“Everything we’ve done so far, we have done very carefully with legal consultation and we are cocksure, we’re not going to have the kind of speculation that you are professing at this point in time.

“We’re very comfortable with what we have done. It is still pessimism. However, not in that school of thought yet. We don’t have to be there.”

Also speaking on allegations of vote-buying during the Ekiti governorship election, Adamu appealed to the media to avoid reporting negative issues about the country’s polls.

“I just want to add a word or two in the response of our governor-elect on the issue of vote buying. As a patriotic Nigerian that is privileged to lead the ruling party in this country today, I want to only appeal to the media. Please don’t partake in portraying negative attitudes in our processes,” he said.

“If you do so, you are compromising. I’m sorry to say so. You’re compromising the integrity of our process as a country.”

Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said the concept of “placeholder” for vice-presidential candidates “has no place in our constitutional and legal framework”.