He said this when members of the Democratic Emancipation Movement paid him a courtesy visit in Kaduna on Tuesday.
“My decision to contest will be tied to the constitution of the APC. If the party chooses me as its candidate, I will contest. If the members do not consider me, I will not contest but I will still support the party. My decision to run for 2015 will solely be that of the party,” He added
Buhari also said, “I thought about this merger in 2007. This is because I found out that none of the opposition parties can challenge PDP successfully. But if we come together with those that have representation at the National Assembly and the Houses of Assembly and go back to sensitise our constituencies, even if the PDP want to rig they would find it impossible to rig.
“I discovered that by being so divisive, we made ourselves very vulnerable. So, the best way to survive and for this country to stabilise we just have to come together and I believe, along the line, we made necessary sacrifices.
“The tension in the country has already come down; people now think that they have a viable alternative. These feelings and belief is across the country, not only in the North or in the South-West. There is a good feeling about the party in all the political zones of the country.
“Our next important step is the mobilisation of constituencies to make sure that elections are conducted according to the law.
“To be honest, we have to thank INEC because when we thought we had applied according to the 2010 Electoral Act, INEC drew our attention to the Electoral Act provision that said that there must be a headquarters at the federal capital that is good enough to be called headquarters of a national party. Then there was the issue of our constitution, our manifesto, and the harmonisation of the main three parties.
“We thought that the initial nine signatories were enough to manage the party on the interim between registration and convention, but INEC advised us and told us that we needeed to get between at least 25 or 35 people to come out from the whole geopolitical zones to sign.
“If INEC wanted to be wicked, they could have kept mute and just sent us a letter that our application was not complete. They could have done that. But for them to send us an observation which was later corrected, I believe they have been very impartial and we thank them for that.”
Responding to the statement, the acting National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Tony Okeke, said, “There is no way the APC can win the election in 2015. He (Buhari) is day-dreaming,”
“Nigerians have realised that the PDP is the only political party that has their interest at heart. The APC on the other hand is merely lusting for power and that its members don’t have the interest of Nigerians at heart.
“The APC is a party of despots, dictators who love to impose candidates on the people. Nigerians are tired of such people.”, Okeke further added.
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