APC Presidential Ticket: I’m Not Under Pressure To Step Down For Anybody – Kwankwaso

Governor-Rabiu-Musa-KwankwasoGovernor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State on Tuesday categorically stated that he is not under pressure from any quarter to drop his presidential ambition for any aspirant under the guise of consensus arrangement.

The four leading presidential aspirants of the All Progressives Congress, APC, – founder of LEADERSHIP Group, Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, former head of state, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), former vice president Atiku Abubakar and Kwankwaso, have expressed their determination to slug it out at the party’s December 29 primaries, but there are speculations that talks are ongoing to get the aspirants to agree among themselves on a consensus candidate, a suggestion some of them are out rightly opposed to.

Kwankwaso, while speaking to reporters in his office on Tuesday in Kano, urged the APC leadership to avoid the mistake of adopting a consensus presidential candidate, arguing that it will signal the end of the party because a popular candidate may be denied the ticket of winning such election.

He said, “I am not under any pressure to step down for anybody, in as much as nobody has contacted me to step down, doing that will not augur well for the party. You see, so many people are used to either small parties, like medium sized parties, where people sit down and choose somebody in a room.

“Now, we are talking of APC, a mega party, which is not ANPP, which is not CPC, ACN, or APGA or new PDP. I always tell people to look at the example of the PDP since 1999 and in each election, people have to go for primaries, not arranged elections, real election, primary election, even when we have sitting President in 2003 and 2011, there were elections, very serious elections.

“That is why PDP has been winning all along and all others who are involved in stage managing primary elections always lose elections. As fate will have it, PDP has now decided to do their own primaries in the Villa, while the APC will hold theirs in the field, which clearly shows that APC will win, while the PDP will lose the elections in 2015”.