The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has attributed the decision reached by many delegates to vote for Bola Tinubu as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress on the silence of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He made this assertion while appearing as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today which was monitored by Africa Daily News, New York.
El-Rufai explained that Buhari asked the northern delegates to vote for any of the shortlisted five presidential candidates of their choice.
According to him, Buhari didn’t dictate how delegates from Kaduna State should vote at the APC presidential primary.
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While speaking Friday night, the governor said, ‘In many of our states, the delegate votes were divided,’ el-Rufai said.
‘Before I went to address the Kaduna delegates for the last time, I went to the President and I asked him, ‘Have you decided on who we should vote for?’ He said, ‘I told you, go and vote for any of the five (candidates selected by the APC governors).’
‘I said, ‘Mr President, the Kaduna delegates are your delegates; you are going to retire and live in Kaduna. So, you can tell me who you want out of the five’, and the President said, ‘I want all five’.
‘I said, ‘what then should I tell Kaduna delegates?’ He said, ‘Tell them to vote their conscience; they are representing 10 million people in Kaduna State. It’s a heavy responsibility, and they should discharge it and pick the best candidate.’
‘Now, I don’t know how the Kaduna delegates voted, but the feedback I got after the voting is that most of them voted for Asiwaju, some voted for Amaechi and some voted for Professor Yemi Osinbajo.’
Africa Daily News, New York had last week reported that Tinubu had won the APC’s presidential ticket after polling 1,271 votes to defeat his closest rivals, ex-Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
While Amaechi polled 316 votes, Osinbajo scored 235 votes.
He contested against 13 other aspirants, namely, Mr Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Mr Ahmed Rufai, Senator Rochas Okorocha, Mr Jack Rich, Governor Ben Ayade, Governor David Umahi, Senator Ahmed Yarima, Dr Ahmed Lawan, Osinbajo, Amaechi, Governor Yahaya Bello and Mr Ogbonnaya Onu.
