The Personal Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, has said the president did not campaign for his party, the APC after his re-election because “he wanted to leave the people to express their will”.
He also said the president also did not want the victories of party candidates to be attributed to his influence.
In a series of tweets on his official twitter handle @BashirAhmaad, the aide said Mr Buhari initially wanted to visit some states to campaign “but changed his mind insisting Nigerians should be allowed to vote whoever they wanted without his (Buhari’s) influence”.
“In politics you can never be fair to all at the same time; APC wanted #PMB to visit some states after presidential election to campaign for some candidates of the party, all set, last minute he canceled and said people should be allowed to vote for whoever they want, but not because of him.”
After winning the February 23 presidential election and receiving his certificate of return, the president has maintained a low profile politically to the consternation of many.
According to Mr Ahmad, many of them (party members) accused the president of not doing enough to help his party to win the governorship elections.
“After the governorship election on March 9th, some candidates of his APC and their supporters weren’t happy, they blamed him for not doing enough to help his party to win, while opposition were hailing him, saying that he’s a President for all and that’s how it should be” he said.
The March 9 governorship election was not concluded in some states and supplementary elections were scheduled for March 23.
Elections in Bauchi, Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa Plateau, and Benue State were declared inconclusive and that of Rivers State suspended.
From the announcement of a new date for supplementary election, some candidates got court orders which prevented the commission from concluding supplementary election in Bauchi and Adamawa.
Meanwhile, Mr Ahmad explained that a few days to the supplementary election too, “efforts were made to make the president record a short video calling for support for APC candidates but the president declined.”
“Few days to supplementary elections, we wanted President Buhari to record a short video asking people to come out and vote for candidates of his party, the APC, which is very right, again he declined and issued a statement saying that people should vote leaders of their choice.
“In short; for elections which President Buhari isn’t even on the ballot paper, he has received blames both from his party and opposition, all because he decided not to interfere in the process.
“In politics, when one side is hailing you, the other will be blaming you.”
