The contest for the governorship in Ekiti State on 21 June is heating up with the APC chieftains – former military leader Muhammadu Buhari ex-Lagos Governor Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Kano Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso and Rivers Governor Rotimi Amaechi – pitching up in Edo Ekiti on 21 May to support Governor Kayode Fayemi's campaign for re-election...
Under these conditions the APC faces a tricky choice for its presidential candidate next year: the favourite remains General Muhammadu Buhari a devout and modest Muslim who ran a stern military regime in the 1980s...
Muhammadu Buhari in a palace coup in August 1985...
Although the PDP sees Anambra and the south-east as its political heartland under the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan the APC has mobilised its leading lights such as former military leader General Muhammadu Buhari and the ex-Governor of Lagos State Bola Tinubu...
Muhammadu Buhari Babangida's predecessor and now one of Jonathan's most serious rivals for the presidency led a military regime in 1984 that hired ex-Mossad agents to kidnap a former civilian politician Umaru Dikko from exile in London and return him to Nigeria to face corruption charges (AC Vol 50 No 19 A business and strategic foray)...
The APC however is a credible merger into a single party formed from the south-west's Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN); the small northern-based All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP AC Vol 44 No 8 North-south divide); the leading party in the south-east the All Progressives' Grand Alliance (APGA AC Vol 48 No 8 Too many parties spoil the polls); and Major General Muhammadu Buhari's Congress for Progressive Change...
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The party is increasingly seen in the north as Jonathan's party: its governors face rising anger from the grassroots which in 2011 voted heavily for opposition leader and former military ruler Major General Muhammadu Buhari...
Muhammadu Buhari a former military leader and the CPC’s presidential candidate in 2011 with a strong northern following also called the operation a ‘massacre’ and his new allies in the ACN said it showed Nigeria’s military as having ‘little or no respect for human rights and the sanctity of lives...
The two main candidates – Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ACN and General Muhammadu Buhari of the CPC – are prickly characters and their last cooperation talks fell apart just before the 2011 polls amid claims of double-dealing and betrayal (AC Vol 52 No 1 Electric elections)...