Buhari/Fashola Ticket as Buhari Borrows N27.5m for Form

All Progressive Congress (APC) would win the 2015 presidential elections if the party picks Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) as its presidential candidate and Mr. Babatunde Fashola, Lagos State Governor, as the running mate, according to Chief Ayo Akande, a leader of APC in Lagos.

In a statement yesterday, Akande, said that a Buhari/Fashola ticket is the “best option” for the party because of their good antecedents.

This is coming as Buhari, who is running for the fourth time, also claimed he borrowed  N27.5 million for the expression of interest and nomination forms to run for the nation’s highest office on the platform of the  APC.

But Akande said that the combination of Buhari and Fashola would be the perfect option to seize power from the PDP in the presidential election.

According to Akande, the Buhari/Fashola ticket was his personal suggestion and that corruption would be effectively curbed in the country while poverty would be drastically reduced to the barest level if the APC considers the option.

 “A Buhari/Fashola combination stands to offer lot of advantages. We all know Buhari as a man of good virtue, who did not corruptly enrich himself. The APC stands a better chance to defeat President Goodluck Jonathan who has been endorsed as the sole candidate of the PDP for the 2015 presidential election.

“A Buhari/Fashola team would give the Peoples Democratic Party a good fight in the presidential elections.

“The antecedents of Buhari as a military head of state in terms of war against indiscipline and corruption and Fashola’s self-discipline and accountability would give the APC the long-sought exalted seat of the president of the country.”

Buhari If he emerges the APC candidate, the former military ruler will be contesting the presidency for the fourth time.

He contested against ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003 on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party and against the late former President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2007, also on the platform of the ANPP. In 2011, he was also the presidential candidate of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change.

Both the ANPP and CPC merged with the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria to become the APC.

Meanwhile, Buhari claimed yesterday that “It’s a pity I couldn’t influence this amount to be put down ‎as in the case of ladies and the disable that intend to participate. I always look left and right in our meetings but I could not read sympathy, so I kept my trap.

“But I felt heavily sorry for myself because I don’t want to go and ask somebody to pay for my nomination forms, because I always try to pay myself, at least for the nomination.

“N27 million is a big sum, thankfully I have personal relationship with the manager of my bank in Kaduna and I told him that very soon the forms are coming, so, whether I am on red, or green or even black please honour it otherwise I may lose the nomination.

“I was about to go to Kaduna this morning and I told the Chairman but he said in that case, you better pick your form and keep a straight face that means there is no excuse,” Buhari said.