The Senator representing Ogun Central, Ibikunle Amosun, yesterday explained the reason he withdrew from contesting the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential ticket.
Amosun and five other aspirants stepped down for the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, hours before voting at the special convention held in Abuja.
Tinubu later clinched the party’s presidential ticket after polling 1,271 votes.
The lawmaker, a former Ogun State governor, said the Northern governors’ support for a Southern aspirant to fly the APC presidential flag prompted him to withdraw from the race.
Amosun, while addressing his supporters at the Alake’s palace in Abeokuta for a welcome rally, said he was not desperate to win the party’s presidential primary.
He said, “Let me tell you this, you sent me to Abuja to go and work for us, I told them when I addressed them why I wanted to be President of Nigeria.
“But my wanting to be president of Nigeria cannot supersede the interest of all of us in Nigeria, all of us in the South, all of us in the South West.
“It got to a point that our brother governors from the North were rooting for the presidency to go to the South.
“Then we said, if we want the presidency to come to the South, then all of us, we must find a way to unite, we must find a way to drop all these personal ambitions for the overall interest of all of us in the entire South, and particularly the South West.
“I want to be President of Nigeria, but my wanting to be President of Nigeria is just 20 per cent, and that 80 per cent of it is that the presidency should come to the South West. Lo and behold, Almighty God has answered that prayer ultimately. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is our flagbearer will be the president of this great nation, Nigeria.”
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