I have nothing personal against Buhari, Fayose insists

Governor Ayo Fayose of Ekiti State has insisted that he has nothing personal against the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, as the jostling for votes in the coming general election by politicians continues.

Governor Fayose, in a statement on Thursday, was reacting to criticisms trailing his mode of campaign for the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), insisted that he owed no one any apology for expressing his opinions on the ongoing campaigns.

Fayose, who spoke through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, also insisted that he “owed nobody any apology for exposing the hypocrisy of APC leaders,” whom he also accused of “placing personal interests far above national interests.”

According to him, “the APC had not only packaged lies and tried to foist such on Nigerians, but had compromised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to rig the election if it had been held on February 14.”

He said, “I remember then as the ad hoc chairman of the PDP committee to shop for the presidential candidate to replace former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a crop of suitable, brilliant, healthy and competent northern politicians in the PDP were shortlisted by me for Obasanjo to pick from, but he overruled the list and asked me to contact the late President Umaru Musa Yar’ Adua because he preferred him.

“In fairness to the late president, he objected to the offer on health ground, but Obasanjo insisted that he must be the president.

“ I am not against the North, rather, if Obasanjo had picked from the list of names submitted by my committee to him, certainly, a northerner, replacing Obasanjo would have ruled this country till 2015. As an insider, who saw everything and who again have noticed the repeat of the episode of 2006, I must talk.

“There is nothing bad in allowing President Jonathan from the South to complete the two terms he is allowed constitutionally and in 2019, a real candidate from the North, not one manipulated by the South-West APC, will emerge to take over? These APC leaders operate in deceit, the well being of this country is secondary to them. The is the party that ruled Ekiti for just only four years and grounded the state with huge debts.

“That 2006 scenario is again being re-enacted with Obasanjo and APC leaders branding General Buhari to be the president of this country.

“I am not wishing General Buhari dead, but the fact remains that he is too old to govern a complex country like Nigeria and we don’t want a president that will govern by proxy.”

Throwing more light on the hypocrisy of the APC, Fayose wondered why Buhari could not appear at APC organised rally in London last Wednesday if indeed he was not on hospital bed?.

He said the much-talked about Chatham House lecture? was a face-saving device to cover the true position of Buhari, adding that most of those attacking him were doing so because he stuck out

his neck to exposed the lies of the APC.

He added that he would not relent.

The governor said after he proved to the world that Buhari? was interviewed in Abuja and not London, the APC had not been able to prove him wrong.