Ex-SGF Boss Mustapha faults claim one individual made Buhari President in indirect jibe at Tinubu, says contribution of merging parties brought paltry 3m of the 15.5m winning votes

The immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, Boss Mustapha, has faulted the widely held claim that one individual made Buhari the president in the 2015 election.

Speaking at the unveiling of the book, “According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience”, witten by Garba Shehu, the former SGF who said he did not want to stir any controversy, said Buhari already had over 12 million existing votes and that the merger of the legacy parties brought in only three million votes.

Tinubu had during a June 2022 visit to Ogun State to canvass for the support of party stakeholders ahead of the APC’s special presidential convention, said he made Muhammadu Buhari president.

But the former SGF recalled how in early 2013, as the leader of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change CPC, Buhari had formally requested and supported the creation of a CPC merger committee, part of a broader coalition-building process which brought together the Action Congress of Nigeria ACN, All Nigeria Peoples Party ANPP, All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA faction, and elements of the ruling party through the breakaway “new PDP” group.

“We also had our own transition Merger Committee, the ANPP, and a fraction of others. And elements of the ruling party, through the breakaway New PDP group, his endorsement and participation, along with other party leaders such as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the ANPP lent credence, credibility, and direction to the merger, helping to unify disparate party factions under the banner of the All Progressives Congress APC. That coalition-building paved the way for the first democratic defeat of an incumbent ruling party in Nigeria’s history. President Buhari’s integrity, national stature and disciplined messaging were central to that breakthrough”, said Mustapha.

The former SGF who said he did not intend to stoke any controversy , added that Buhari brought 12.5 million votes to the table while the merging parties , all together, gave him 3.5 million votes.

He said; “Not only that, for us in the ACN, I do not intend to stir any controversy, but I will make bold to state this—that the merger in 2013 was midwife to present a Buhari or create a Buhari Presidency because we looked at the statistics of the votes that were coming to the table. In the 2003 election, it was the Obasanjo/Buhari presidential contest where Buhari recorded 2.7 million votes. In the next election, he got 12.7 million votes. In 2007, it came to 6.6 million, it went back to 12.2 million in 2011.

“When we were conceptualizing the merger, what would give us a headstart and obviously, it was at the back of our consciousness that the merger with the CPC, though it had only one state, the ACN had six states, ANPP three states, and when you sum up the total votes that gave us the presidency in 2015, the aggregate of the total votes was 15.4 million. So, basically, what we brought to the table after the merger outside the Buhari 12.5 million votes was three million”.