Ex-Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, has said that the 2013 merger involving President Bola Tinubu’s then Action Congress of Nigeria, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar-led New Peoples Democratic Party, and other stakeholders contributed a crucial 3.2 million votes for APC. He recently revealed that the reports saying Tinubu was the reason Buhari became president are false.
Speaking in Abuja during the public presentation of According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesman’s Experience, a book authored by former presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu, Mustapha shared that it is important to recognize the major role PMB played in reshaping Nigeria’s political landscape.
According to him, Buhari deserves praise for his integrity and discipline that have helped pave the way for the first democratic defeat of an incumbent ruling party in the nation’s history.
“In early 2013, as the leader of the Congress for Progressive Change, President Buhari formally requested and supported the creation of the CPC Merger Committee, part of a broader coalition-building process that brought together the ACN—the party under which I served as the Deputy National Chairman at that time.
We also had our own transition Merger Committee, the ANPP, and a fraction of others. And elements of the ruling party, through the breakaway New PDP group, his endorsement and participation, along with other party leaders such as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the ANPP lent credence, credibility, and direction to the merger, helping to unify it.
This led to significant participation under the banner of the All Progressives Congress. That coalition built and paved the way for the first democratic defeat of an incumbent ruling party in Nigeria’s history. President Buhari’s integrity, national stature, and disciplined messaging were central to that breakthrough.
Not only that, for us in the ACN, I do not intend to stir any controversy, but I will make bold to state this—that the merger in 2013 was midwife to present a Buhari or create a Buhari Presidency,” he said.
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He further noted that CPC played a key role in PMB’s victory, even though the party controlled only one state at the time, compared to the ACN and ANPP, which controlled six and three states, respectively.
Mustapha stated that calculating the numbers and observing the vote statistics carefully made it obvious that a coalition could seal an unexpected victory.
The former secretary to the Government of the Federation concluded by saying that his revelation is not meant to trigger controversy, stressing that he is only emphasising on why politicians need to be realistic with their decisions.
“Because we looked at the statistics of the votes that were coming to the table. In the 2003 election against Obasanjo, Buhari polled 12.7 million votes. In the 2007 election against Yar’Adua, he received 6.6 million votes after the PDP unleashed its machinery.
In 2011, it went up to 12.2 million votes. And when we were considering the merger, we said: What would give us a head start? Obviously, it was in the back of our consciousness that the merger with the CPC—though the CPC at that time had only one state, the ACN had six states, and the ANPP had three states.
But when you sum up the total votes that gave us the presidency in 2015, the aggregate was 15.4 million votes.
So basically, what we brought to the table, the other parties that were in the merger, in addition to Buhari’s 12.2 million votes, were 3.2 million votes.
I do not intend to create any controversy, but I am saying that was the most realistic and pragmatic thing that we needed to do,” he added.
