Buhari may face backlash from APC governorship candidates for not supporting their campaigns

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari is facing a possible backlash from some All Progressives Congress (APC) governors who lost their seats in yesterday's elections because he refused to campaign for them during the supplementary polls.

On February 23, President Buhari was returned for second term after the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) declared him the winner with 15,084,862 votes, compared with 11,262,978 for his nearest rival Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Many APC governors and gubernatorial candidates delivered their states and had been expecting President Buhari to return the favour by campaigning for them.

On March 9, governorship elections took place in 29 states but in six of them, the results were declared inconclusive due to irregularities. This prompted Inec to organise supplementary polls and many APC governors were facing tight battles and wanted the president to come to their aid by campaigning for them.

However, President Buhari declined the offer, saying voters should be allowed to vote for whoever they wanted without his interference. This affected the APC badly as it lost the elections in Sokoto in Benue states and could also lose in Kano, Adamawa and  Bauchi states, where sitting governors face being removed from office.

Bashir Ahmad, President Buhari's personal assistant on new media, said the president actually made the move to visit some states to campaign for candidates of his party but shelved the idea at the last minute, insisting that Nigerians should be allowed to vote for whoever they wanted without his influence. This has not go down well with the governors as many of them accused President Buhari of not doing enough to help his party to win the gubernatorial elections.

Mr Ahmad said: “In politics you can never be fair to all at the same time as the APC wanted President Buhari to visit some states after the presidential elections to campaign for some candidates of the party. However, at the last minute he cancelled such plans and said people should be allowed to vote for whoever they want and not because of him.

“After the governorship elections on March 9, some candidates of his APC and their supporters weren’t happy and they blamed him for not doing enough to help his party to win, while opposition were hailing him, saying that he is a president for all. A few days to the supplementary elections, we wanted President Buhari to record a short video asking people to come out and vote for candidates of his party but again he declined and issued a statement saying that people should vote leaders of their choice."

He added that President Buhari was not on the ballot paper for the governorship elections, so decided to keep his distance. According to Mr Ahmad,  President Buhari has been blamed by both the APC and PDP but in politics, when one side is hailing you, the other will be blaming you.