No Rift Between Tinubu and Buhari over Coalition – Garba Shehu

Mallam Garba Shehu, the spokesperson to former President Muhammadu Buhari, has reacted to the reported rift between his principal and President Bola Tinubu.

The former President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors weighed in on the matter following reports that backers of Buhari are leaving the All Progressives Congress.

The reports have it that the members of the Congress for Progressive Change block, which came with Buhari into the alliance that formed the APC, are leaving for the new coalition with the African Democratic Congress as platform.

Shehu, who spoke on a Trust Television programme: “30 Minutes,” said there was no truth in the report that Buhari and Tinubu had fallen out.

He said Buhari remains committed to the APC, which brought him to power after three unsuccessful attempts.

He said: “People are entitled to hold their opinion, and your interpretation of it is purely your entitlement.

“I don’t think in a formal and official sense, anybody would talk about distrust or mistrust or a façade between the Buhari administration and the Tinubu administration.

“For Muhammadu Buhari, for him, he’s essentially an APC member.

“He does not forget the fact that he ran one, two, three times and failed to get the presidency until they cobbled together the APC.
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“APC came together and gave him two terms, for which he has remained grateful, and says, and that’s what I’ve learned from him: ‘I will never be ungrateful. I will never betray the party that gave me two terms in office.’”

Responding to the reported tension within the APC, Shehu said Buhari’s camp is not disturbed by such speculation.

He said: “We see statements. We read them when people say these things. Do we get disturbed? I don’t think that is the word.”

Shehu said those who witnessed the effort it took to build the APC in 2014 are unlikely to undermine the party’s stability now.

He said: “It took a lot of doing, energy, and sacrifice for the APC to have been put in place, for the desperate opposition elements to come together.

“They tried one, two, three times, and they failed. But by this time, they came together in 2014, formed a party, and ran in 2014. They won.

“Which means, in effect, that the people who were around, who saw how much sweat it took to build this coalition, I think they are not likely to be the ones who are trying to fracture it.”

(The Eagle Online)