The Presidency on Monday dismissed an alleged claim that a former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, made the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari, possible as President in 2015.

According to the Presidency, no one can or should claim to have single-handedly engineered the emergence Buhari  as President in the 2015 general elections.

DIPLOMATIC DIARY reports that former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, while addressing the APC delegates on Thursday at the Presidential Lodge in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, had allegedly claimed that without him, Buhari would not have emerged president in 2015.

Although, Tinubu, a presidential aspirant of the APC had apologised and said  he was quoted out of context.

However, the Presidency, in its statement titled, “Comment On The Statement Made By A Leading APC Flagbearer Candidate”, noted that while some stakeholders (in allusion to Tinubu) were crucial to Buhari’s emergence as the President, he was eventually voted for by millions of Nigerians.

 Shehu said the past should not decide the next general election and what matters today is to elect a candidate that would “make our country better than it has ever been.”

He said, “It is perhaps not surprising that on the eve of the All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer primary there are those running as candidates who wish to associate themselves with the President’s rise to elected office seven years ago.

“There are many people who played parts large and small in his historic election in 2015, making history as the first opposition candidate to defeat a sitting president with power changing hands peacefully at the ballot box.

“There are those who advised the President to run again; those who decided to build a political party – the APC – that could finally be the political vehicle capable of delivering victory where all other opposition parties and alliances before it had failed.

“Those decisions may have been agreed upon by a few. But they were delivered by thousands and voted for by tens of millions. No one can or should claim to have made the possible.

“Yet as important as that moment was, it is not what should decide the next general election.

“What matters is the future: the policy platforms, the ideas, the drive, and the determination to take over the President’s stewardship of our country and build upon his legacy to make our country better than it has ever been.

“The person most demonstrable in those qualities is the one to lead our party and our country forward.”