TheCable

The presidency says the outcome of the All Progressives Congress (APC) direct presidential primaries held on Friday is a clear indication that President Muhammadu Buhari will emerge victorious in 2019.

Garba Shehu, the president’s senior special assistant on media and publicity, commented on the primaries in a statement issued on Saturday.

He said the presidential primaries, which took place across the states, was a major boost to the president’s success at next year’s general election.

Shehu said the huge turnout of millions of registered party members at all voting centres had indicated that “the president has an incomparable ability to reach out to people and mobilise votes”.

He said: “It is significant that President Buhari has won a major victory, fair and square through direct nationwide primary, a system that seeks to break the mould.

“The president has shown that you don’t have to be a party owner or go through a difficult inner party consensus to emerge as candidate.

“Beyond this being a victory for the party and the president, it is a message to everyone that development and good governance are more important to our people than divide and rule politics.

“The message in the air from this unique achievement by the APC is that all true democratic parties in the country need to start raising their act by copying the leadership of the president.

“We thank everyone for their role in bringing about this victory.”