The Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.), has reportedly come under pressure to back out of the race.
A report this morning in The SUPREME, a Lagos-based weekly newspaper, said that the pressure piled up on Buhari “when some top stakeholders of APC met with those of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday in the house of a top PDP stalwart in Maitama area of Abuja.”
The paper said that the closed-door meeting “lasted till late in the evening,” adding: “Top on the agenda was for Buhari to step down and for him to nominate his choice for sensitive portfolios in President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term.”
According to The SUPREME in the story entitled ‘Shocker! 24-Hours To Election: Has Buhari Stepped Down?’: “There are speculations that the presidential hopeful of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari may have decided to take the back seat by stepping down from contesting Saturday March 28, 2015 presidential election.”
But spokesman for APC, Lai Mohammed, dismissed the report. An angry Lai Mohammed told the paper on telephone yesterday evening: “It is idiotic to even think of that. Do you know who General Buhari is? He can never do such a thing.”
He added that “nobody in APC can discuss such a thing. It is idiotic, it is nonsense!” (News Express, The Supreme).