APC Chairman replies Bola Tinubu on Buhari’s commentary, says Tinubu may be sanctioned

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the national leader of All Progressive Congress (APC), and the frontline presidential candidate have made it crystal clear that without him, Buhari would not have emerged as Nigerian president.

On Buhari’s emergence as APC presidential candidate in 2015, he said “If not for me that led the war front, Buhari won’t have emerged. He contested first, second and third times, but lost. He even said on television that he won’t contest again. But I went to his home in Katsina, I told him you would contest and win, but you won’t joke with the matters of the Yoruba.

The utterances by Tinubu in Abeokuta, Ogun State have not been well received in some quarters in the APC party, particularly the APC chairman Abdulah Adamu, who refuted the commentary on President Buhari and said that Tinubu maybe sanctioned.

Speaking to journalists at APC national office in Abuja. Adamu said, “He went as far as saying how Gen. Muhammadu Buhari went to him, citing instances of even prostrating in tears begging him to endorse him and to support him for the presidency. He claimed Buhari went to him.

“His utterances are very, very insulting. It is very, very unbecoming for a person of that standing to do what he did to the sitting president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the President produced by the votes of the APC. Though he is the president, he belongs to everybody.

“It is amazing how a fellow APC person would make that kind of comment in that kind of circumstances about the president. We take exception to this. It has shown that he does not show any appreciable level of respect for the office of Mr President.

“Yes, yesterday we saw some parts of a retraction but that effort is not adequate. It is not sincere. It is not in-depth enough. It doesn’t wipe off the impression that that event has left in our minds”.

“At the time this event took place, the screening committee had not presented its report to us at all and that means no one was trying to suggest that anybody was under any threat. So there was no justification for the time that this thing happened.”

Adamu continued, “This morning we saw some traces of withdrawal of those statements. You see, these are statements that buttress his intention of actual action. Yes, we can’t say we refuse not seeing it in the papers. It happened. He said he has the greatest respect for the president. You see, in Hausa there is a proverb that once you take hold of any amount of grass from a thatched house and you pulled it off from the roof, you can’t replace the same number of grass. What is out is out. What he did say was not an apology. It is just like trying to retract and you say I didn’t mean this. It is a problem of misinterpretation. It is not a regret.”

On the possibility of sanctioning and penalizing Tinubu, he said “If there is a need to penalize any member of the party not just Bola Tinubu, anybody, we will bring him to the party’s book, anybody, as we watch events as they unfold”.