APC clears Buhari, Atiku, others for primaries

By Umar Muhammad Puma

Chairman of the Presidential screening committee, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu has said that the committee’s insistence on signing a letter of commitment by all the five aspirants is to assure the party that they are running to offer service, and for the others to support the winner and collapse their structure into the party so that the party can move into the election united.

Presenting certificates to the five aspirants that were screened by the committee, Onu said all the aspirants have all qualified to run for the Presidential primaries and that any one of them can become the flag bearer of the party.

“Today marks the rising of this great giant in the mission to ensure that the problems confronting our nation are taken care of because we know that there is really nothing wrong with Nigeria except we have not had the proper leadership. The APC is determined to give the proper leadership to our people.

“”We took the aspirants through a very rigorous part to making Nigerians know the calibre of persons, one of who will be the flag bearer of our party to run for President. We also tested their understanding of the problems of this nation.

“During that exercise, we found that these men are so distinguished that there is not one of them that will not make a great difference to our lives. The goal of the party is to control government at the national level so that the problems of our country, those problems that people thought cannot be solved, the APC will show that they can be solved.

“We believe that whoever will fly our flag will have full understanding of those problems. I want to assure you that I was very happy with the outcome of the exercise and satisfied with the quality of people running for president on our party platform. We believe that any of them, by the help of God and the support of Nigerians will be able to make the difference and change the fortunes of our country because the problem we now have is not a matter of ourselves, but our children and grand children.

“I want to also tell you that the scores were very narrow and very high with the least scoring 62 percent while the highest scored 78 percent. The second person scored 77 percent and the third person scored 75 percent. So, you can see how close it was.

Responding on behalf of the aspirants, former head of state, and one of the Presidential aspirant, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, expressed happiness to the party for organising such a competent team to screen the aspirants.

“We went through the process, discussing foreign affairs, security, economy and what our personal decisions are to the polity. It is a very trying time for the five of us, but we are grateful that they have been very generous in their award of marks and that we all made it. The rest of the decision now goes to the public and the delegates. In a week’s time, we will come together and whoever gets the ticket to run on behalf of the party will emerge”, he said.