Don’t give APC presidential ticket to highest bidder, Olawepo-Hashim warns

A chieftain of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, has urged the party’s leadership not to allow its presidential primary and convention to become “another dollar rain and a trading platform for the highest bidder.”

Olawepo-Hashim, in a statement from his media office in Abuja on Tuesday, said Nigeria is neither a commodity to be traded, nor a property to be auctioned and sold to the highest bidder.

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“Nigerian Presidency has never been for sale and should not be for sale now,” he said.

According to him, “the PDP has demonstrated that it has learnt nothing, but as a party, the APC cannot follow her inglorious example. The next President of Nigeria must not be a Mafioso leader. Our President must not be a gangster!”

He said: “As a party in government, the APC has a sacred and patriotic duty to guide a disciplined transfer of power not one left in the hands of the god of mammon.”

“National interest is what should guide the choice of the APC and some of the urgent national imperative should include shortlisting a candidate that will heal the wounds of division in the country and finding also a Vice that will compliment him/her in this national objective.”

He equally noted that Peter Obi did quit the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, under the excuse that the build up to the convention has been seriously monetized and that “Pius Anyim, a former Senate President could not hide his frustration that the voting did not reflect the current issues germane to the nation.”

Olawepo-Hashim also urged the EFCC to follow large movement of illicit cash for politics and seize where necessary, laundered funds in circulation and prosecute offenders.

He also re-emphasised the fact that “the question of nomination of flag bearers are exclusive matters for parties and party priorities and national interest are the highest imperative and nothing else.”