Adamu: APC may sanction Tinubu over outburst against Buhari

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Abdullahi Adamu, has said the party may sanction one of the presidential aspirants, Bola Tinubu, over his outburst against President Muhammadu Buhari in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Thursday.

Adamu, who disclosed that all presidential aspirants will meet with Buhari on Saturday night, said the party was not happy with the outburst of Tinubu.

Tinubu, who is the national leader of the APC, had in Abeokuta, said Buhari would not have won the 2015 presidential election if not for his (Tinubu) intervention.

He also said he led the political struggle that produced the President in 2015, adding that he also nominated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate.

“If not me that led the war front, Buhari wouldn’t have emerged. He contested first, second and third times, but lost. He even said on television that he won’t contest again.

“But I went to his home in Katsina. I told him you would contest and win, but you won’t joke with the matters of the Yorubas. Since he has emerged I have not been appointed minister. I didn’t get contract.

“This time, it’s Yoruba turn and in Yorubaland, it’s my tenure,” the presidential aspirant had said.

The presidential aspirant, in a statement on Friday, said his speech was twisted by his opponents to convince President Buhari to oppose his aspiration ahead of the APC presidential primaries.

Tinubu described Buhari as “an experienced and accomplished leader”, stressing that he will never denigrate the President.

However, the APC chairman, while speaking to newsmen at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja on Saturday, said: “It is amazing how a fellow APC person would make that kind of comment in that kind of circumstances about the president.

“We take exception to this. It has shown that he does not show any appreciable level of respect for the office of Mr President.

“Therefore we want to make it public that we are saddened by what we saw in the video, in that reportàge and we condemn it in the strongest of terms.

READ ALSO: Tinubu: My opponents twisted my speech to turn Buhari against me

“We do hope that he would never say that kind of thing again, particularly of the APC extraction to make such kinds of comments.

“Yes, yesterday we saw some part of a retraction but that effort is not adequate. It is not sincere. It is not in-depth enough. It doesn’t wipe out the impression that that event has left in our minds.

“At the time this event took place, the screening committee had not presented their report to us at all. And was trying to suggest that anybody was under any threat. So there was no justification for the time that this thing happened.

“This morning we saw some traces of withdrawal of those statements. You see these are statements about his intention of actual action.

“Yes, we can’t say we refuse not to see the papers. It happened. He said he has the greatest respect for the president. You see in Hausa there is a proverb that once you take hold of any amount of grass from a thatched house and you pull it off from the roof, you can’t replace the same amount of grass. What is out is out.

“What he did say was not an apology. It’s just like trying to retract and you say I didn’t mean this. It’s a problem of misinterpretation. It is not a regret.

“If there is the need to penalize any member of the party, not just Bola Tinubu, anybody, we will bring him to the party book. Anybody as we watch events as they unfold,” Adamu said.

The Star