President Goodluck Jonathan is unperturbed by the declaration of a former Head of State, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the 2015 presidential election, the Presidency said Wednesday.
Fielding questions from newsmen in Abuja, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, wondered what new the duo would be bringing on board having contested and failed in the past.
Both Buhari and Atiku are poised to battling for the presidential ticket of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).
Okupe, insisted that President Jonathan’s achievements would speak for him and earn him re-election come 2015.
“The declaration by the opposition is not really something new. Most of the candidates of the opposition are serial failures.
“Atiku has tried twice and has failed, Buhari has done it four times and he has failed. If you present yourself for an election, first, second, third and fourth times, what new things are they bringing?
“Have they gone to school or are they bringing new things? We are absolutely unperturbed. The President is going to contest against serial losers.
“People who never win election, people who have no leadership quality and it is even now worse for them because this President has been given four years platform in which he has demonstrated his administrative capability, efficiency and delivery. It is unarguable that these people in the APC, it is a new and good party; they would become relevant in 2019 upward, not now.
“Their declaration and participation is not a threat to us. They have never won an election before. For instance, what is Buhari going to tell Nigerians now?
“What is the new thing he is coming up with? He was a former military Head of State and that is what he has done, but since then and now, what is the new story? You cannot compare ‘I will do to I have done’. It is not possible,” he said.
Asked if the President will declare to contest, the presidential aide had this to say, “The President has been under intense pressure from ordinary citizens, foreign and local interest groups, and especially even his party.
“Virtually all levels of the party structure have more or less endorsed the President to run and I believe the President is not going to let us down. He has done very well. We appreciate it and we are calling on him to come and run.
“As for the timing of his declaration, it is my belief that it will be after due consideration that he will take an appropriate decision that would be of the larger interest of the party and the nation but I don’t see this being too long from now?
On the alleged plan by Jonathan to extend his tenure by two years, Okupe, dismissed the report in a section of the media, describing it a mischievous.
His words, “We have read the news as reported by Sahara reporters that the President is trying to elongate his tenure through means other than democratic and that he is trying to use the excuse of the insurgency in the north east as a basis for doing so.
“But in order that Nigerians and the World is not mislead, I want say that there is not iota of truth in that statement.
“It is not true and there is nothing like that and this is not the President that will do a thing like that,” he explained?.
“As it is everywhere in the world, endorsement itself is not undemocratic, because it is the normal pattern in democratic parlance, if you have a seating President and who is interested to run, usually, he is given the right of first refusal to make public his desire.
“This report is therefore an absolute falsehood, it is untrue and that is why we are debunking it”.
