2015: I’m ready to step down, says Buhari

• AfricCon News
  AfricCon Latest Nigerian Report:  2015: I’m ready to step down, says Buhari
  Africcon Media, Nigeria
  
  From: Africcon Media – Nigeria
  
  Former Head of State and 2011 presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, said he would contest the 2015 presidential election under the newly-formed All Progressives Congress (APC.) Buhari stated this yesterday at the maiden edition of Sam Nda-Isaiah Public Lecture Series in honour of the Publisher of the Leadership Newspapers.
  
  The lecture has the theme: “The role of youths in sustaining democratic values” held at the Justice Idris Legbo Kutigi International Conference Centre, Minna, Niger State. Reacting to a question on the possibility of his stepping down in case more aspirants emerge on the party’s platform, Buhari said no, stressing that “whoever thinks he has got a chance, let him come out because the more we are, the merrier it becomes” In his remarks, the immediate past governor of Kano State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau, said the national conventions of both the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the APC will hold on May 11, 2013, adding that this will be the climax.
  
  The CPC leader, however, said he was ready to drop his presidential ambition for the survival of APC should a better and formidable candidate emerge as the party’s standard bearer for 2015. “I will be ready to step down if there is a formidable and better candidate. It is not about me, but for the survival of the party. APC is about ensuring internal democracy, whoever emerges is the person I will support. Yes, I will be ready to step down” Also former presidential candidate of All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a leader of APC, Malam Shehu Shekarau, who was at the lecture, said the emergence of APC standard bearer will be democratic, despite the array of formidable presidential materials in the fledging party. “It is too early to talk about or to have a presidential candidate.
  
  In APC, we will have internal democracy that will guide the party. Let us have the party on ground first, congresses will be held at various levels that will produce our candidates. At that point, anybody can contest and the party will support the best candidate that emerged” Shekarau said that as soon as all the merging parties are through with their national conventions, formal requests will be made to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for APC’s registration to give room for other activities that will climax in the emergence of the party’s candidates.
  
  “We are not talking of just dismantling the PDP, we want change. We are not just talking about change in democracy but change in attitude, change in approach, change in character, change in conducting the business of government. That’s why our slogan is ‘change’ We are determined to change Nigeria for better”. Earlier in his address, Buhari called on leaders to ensure a viable environment for people to thrive, the media should constantly demand and put leaders in check. “The moment there is nobody in the country to make our leaders to create a viable environment, then the nation is in trouble,” he warned.