Former national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Adamu, says he does not owe anyone an apology for supporting a northerner in the last presidential primary of the party.
He said he pitched his tent with a northern candidate because he’s a northerner, adding that he did not regret his action.
The erstwhile helmsman of the ruling party made this known in an interview with Daily Trust on Sunday.
In what many saw as a poor calculation and risky decision at the time, Adamu openly supported the then senate president Ahmad Lawan for the presidential ticket of the party.
But Lawan was resoundingly defeated at the primary with Tinubu winning by a landslide. Many have opined that Adamu decision to support Lawan, who was the least favourite to clinch the ticket, cost him his position as the party’s chairman.
Reacting to the political furore, the former Nasarawa state governor said he had no regret for the choice he made.
“The party chairman has a role, but with a ruling party, I could not take it on myself to float Ahmed Lawan’s name.
“I am curious because everybody put it on you.
Well, of course, I take responsibility as party chairman, but nobody with maturity in politics and governance will say that Abdullahi Adamu, as the chairman of the party, would just get up and say this is my presidential candidate. It doesn’t add up.
“Of course, there were processes. I don’t want to go back on that. What I detested about this whole setting was that people who wanted to win favours with President Ahmed Bola Tinubu continued saying there was cold war between me and him and making so much capital out of it.
“I am an established person from my root, right from birth. I come from a royal family and I am proud of it. I was born at a time when there was a northern Nigeria. I was brought into its values even though I worked mainly in the private sector. I saw myself first and foremost as a northerner in Nigeria and I have no apologies to anybody on this.
“But times are changing, if you want to take a count of people with the same feeling, attitude, commitment and loyalty to the North, you would have a problem”
He noted that identity politics is entrenched in Nigeria socio-political dynamics, adding that its reality is rife in the South-West where the president hails from.
“But go down South, especially the South West, and you would see that people are not ashamed of beating their chests and telling you who they are and where they come from and what they stand for. Go to the East, till today, we are losing lives in the East for what they believe in, not here.
“The reason I have no regret is that only what God wills will happen. God has made Bola Ahmed Tinubu the president of this country”