Before the election on Saturday, the Bola Tinubu campaign and the All Progressives Congress (APC) were allegedly dumped by the Buhari Osinbajo Solidarity Front (BOSF).
Alhaji Ado Baba, the group’s national chairman, made it clear in a statement he personally signed on Thursday that only members in a factional group made their departure public.
The factional group was urged by him to concentrate on its new endeavor rather than bring the President and Vice President’s names up, as other members of the group still firmly believed in the administration’s policies and continued to do so.
Some supporters of President Muhammadu Buhari, under the aegis of the Buhari-Yemi Osinbajo Nationwide Supporters Group, were reported to have dumped the APC and Tinubu and endorsed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flagbearer, Atiku Abubakar.
The National Coordinator of the Support Group, Danjuma Gwoza announced the decision along with other group members at a press briefing in Abuja, on Wednesday.
The group asked Nigerians for forgiveness for blindly supporting the APC led-government that failed to deliver its promises to the citizens.
Members of the group further pledged support to work for the success of the Atiku-Okowa Presidential ticket.
Danjuma added the organization had started a continuous train-the-Voters’ trainer’s Education Program, in order to improve and increase Atiku’s prospects of winning the February 25 presidential election.
However, while reacting to the development on Thursday, the group’s National Chairman, Alhaji Ado Baba said Gwoza doesn’t speak for the entire group.
He emphasized their loyalty to President Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Baba noted in his statement that the factional group “do not in any way represent the views of the real support groups that are genuinely loyal to both the President and the VP” adding that “their claims are therefore untrue and baseless”.
He continued; “At any rate, what is the motive behind their desperate clinging to the names of the President and Vice President in their political gamble if not crass opportunism and shameless anticipation? A genuine approach would have been the exercise of their free will in making their political choices even if at the 11th hour without the names of Buhari and Osinbajo. These so-called groups could have simply adopted the names of their preferred candidate in their new adventure.
“We wish to make it clear that the actions of these groups are not only misguided and solely for their selfish interests, but also unfortunate, as they do not reflect the true spirit and aspirations of President Muhammadu Buhari and the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
“We urge Nigerians to disregard the actions of these groups, as they do not represent the true loyalty and support that both the President and the Vice President enjoy across this country.
“Supporters of the Buhari/Osinbajo presidency have no need to apologize or dump the All Progressives Congress. As the VP said recently when he represented the President at the presentation of the PMB Legacy Portal the millions of beneficiaries of several people-friendly schemes of the administration such as the Social Investment Programmes (SIP), among others, “are real people provided with a springboard to do more for themselves and for their communities; real people inspired to hope and believe that Nigeria can be positively transformed in our lifetime.”
“I believe I speak the mind of the President when I say that our administration considers it a privilege and an honour to serve the people of our great nation as we have done in the last eight years. These accomplishments are the hard-won dividends of the social contract we entered into with the Nigerian people when we came into office in 2015.
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“Here as stated above is where we stand. Well meaning Nigerians should continue to ignore pretenders and political carpet beggars whatever names they call themselves.”