Buhari Picks APC Nomination Form …Amaechi Defends Aspirant

As a follow up to his formal declaration Wednesday, All Progressive Congress (APC) presidential hopeful and former Head of State, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, yesterday, picked the expression of interest and nomination forms to run for the presidency in 2015 at the APC national secretariat in Abuja.
After picking the forms, Gen. Buhari, who had contested for the presidency on three previous occasions, complained about the N27.5million price tag the party put on the forms, saying he was unable to influence a reduction of the fee.
Speaking to reporters shortly after picking the forms, Gen. Buhari said: “It’s a pity I couldn’t influence this amount to be put down as in the case of ladies and the disabled that intend to participate. I always look left and right in our meetings but I could not read sympathy, so I kept my trap.
The retired General, who many believe to be APC’s best shot said he feels sorry for himself because he does not want to resort to asking anybody to pay for the nomination forms for him, adding that his saving grace was the good relationship he has with his bank Manager in Kaduna, whom he has put on standby to honour the payment for forms notwithstanding whatever his account balance may be.
According to Buhari: “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”.
The APC Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, while reacting to Gen. Buhari’s comment about the cost of the forms said they decided to make the nomination fees high in other to separate the boys from the men.
A former military Head of State, Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday became the second presidential aspirant to pick the expression of interest and nomination forms of the All Progressives Congress.
Buhari, who paid the required N27.5m in Abuja was handed the forms by the party’s national chairman, John Oyegun.
Oyegun handed over the forms to Buhari after former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, handed over a Union Bank cheque of N27.5million on behalf of Buhari to the National Organising Secretary of the party, Senator Osita Izunaso.
Meanwhile, Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has described the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential hopeful, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), as a detribalised Nigerian nationalist.
Amaechi, who is the chairman of Nigerian Governors Forum, spoke during the visit of Buhari to the state to appeal to the people and the South-South region, to vote him in the February 14, 2015 presidential election, should he be picked by his party as its flag bearer.
According to him, “Those who describe you as a religious bigot do not know you. Frankly, I used to think that way when I was in the Peoples’ Democratic Party ( PDP), but all that changed when I joined the APC and have the opportunity to relate with you very closely as a politician that is truly detribalized in the true sense of the word.
“The problem that you have in politics which I have come to observe is that those who managed your image in the past did not manage it properly. They allowed the erroneous label of you being a religious bigot to stick. Let me take myself for example, if you accuse me once, I accuse you 20 times and then go to the media to tell them my own side of the story.
“As you can see, most of those who have come to welcome you to government house are Christians’’, he said
He noted that the percentage of your supporters in Rivers State who are Muslims are not more than 10 per cent. So, you can now see that the majority of your supporters here are non-Muslims. It is evident that your support base in Rivers State is not based on tribal sentiments. As for us, you are a detribalized Nigerian nationalist.
Speaking earlier, Buhari said he was in the state to formerly invite Governor Chibuike Amaechi to attend his formal declaration to run on the platform of the APC for the presidential election.

Chairman, Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers, Gbenemene of Tai Kingdom, King Godwin N.K Gininwa (left) presenting a souvenir to the leader of the National Defence College, Course 23, Brig-Gen Muhammad Aliyu, when the team paid a courtesy visit on the monarch in Port Harcourt