2023: Buhari’s Signature Can No Longer Win Elections – Garba

Former chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adamu Garba has submitted that many presidential aspirants of the party who paid N100million for the APC nomination and expression of interest forms are banking on the support of President Muhammadu Buhari to win the party primaries and the main election.

He however added that many of them would be shocked when they realize the support of the President is not enough to get the winning votes in the forthcoming 2023 elections.

According to Garba who spoke during an interview with Punch, things have changed and the signature of the President is no longer enough to win elections.

Garba who himself was an aspirant under the APC before dumping the party over the high cost of the forms submitted further that many of the aspirants know they won’t win the ticket but still went ahead to pay the huge sum for the forms so they can leverage on it to negotiate other positions or favours within the party.

In his words, “I think one of the serious problems the APC is facing is the fact that the 2023 elections are about a year away. Look at the frontline politicians. If you talk about the PDP, people can predict Atiku or Wike. When it comes to the APC, we really don’t know.

“It is like we are banking on the fake vote bank of the President. This doesn’t exist again. But they still think they can just carry Buhari’s signature to win. This can’t work.

“There are lots of speculations about former President Goodluck Jonathan and certain agenda. Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has invested more. He has moved around and got lots of support from the delegates. Whether they want to disenfranchise this huge democratic investment or not, we don’t know. Perhaps, they are trying to have a forced consensus. And once they do that, they are disenfranchising their major actors. That’s why we who believe in democracy and the future don’t believe that’s our domain. We need to be very strategic in our thinking.”