2019: Sen. Omo-Agege reveals why APC chose Buhari as presidential candidate
Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has hailed the endorsement of President Muhammadu Buhari by members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2019 elections.
Speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday,Omo-Agege at the venue of the APC National Presidential Convention in Abuja, Omo-Agege, the Senator representing Delta State Central Senatorial District, commended the party’s leadership over success of the convention.
He said the ruling party chose to elect Buhari as its presidential candidate to show opposition party the challenges to face in 2019.
According to him, the number of votes polled by Buhari from delegates alone at the APC Convention was a message to opposition parties.
‘’This is the first time this is happening. We decided to go by the option provided in the Electoral Act and our constitution to permit members to directly nominate Mr President at the wards.
”We did this to be able to show to Nigerians unlike in the past where a couple of delegates were doing the nominations.
”Here we have over 14 million card carrying members who did the nomination that will also send a message to the other side about the challenges they face as they come into the contest with Mr President in 2019,” Omo-Agege said.
President Buhari scored a total of 14,842,072 votes at the party’s recent presidential primaries held across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as announced by Dr Kayode Fayemi, Ekiti State Governor-elect, to emerge as the party’s candidate.
Fayemi, who was the Chairman APC Presidential Primary Committee, later asked the no fewer than 7,00 delegates from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to affirm the president’s candidacy through a yes vote, which they did.
