Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has explained why his party lost in some of its strongholds in Saturday’s presidential and national assembly elections.
In Nasarawa State, also the home state of the party’s national chairman, the party lost all the senatorial seats and the state to Labour Party in the presidential election. It also came in second to LP in polls taken in Lagos State, home to its presidential candidate and new president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The party also lost in Kano, Kaduna, and Katsina considered stronghold states.
When talking to reporters in Abuja on Thursday, the APC national chairman denied claims that the National Working Committee was only half-committed to Tinubu’s campaign and didn’t care about it.
He said:” It’s the nature of things: you win some, you lose some and the fact that we lost some major states, like Lagos, Kano, Katsina and even Nasarawa, Kaduna, you cannot be talking about democracy about the evenness of representation at the same time saying you must win everything.
“The fact that we lost these places and didn’t shed tears we did not cry foul, make us the real political party in this country.
“What moral justification is there for a party that won Lagos and felt it was a good game? And he loses place like Ekiti, and they said the game is a bad one; it doesn’t make sense.
“With the strategic position of Lagos, strategic in terms of location, population in terms of economy in terms of political history and prestige, we lost, and we didn’t run the street crying, but what’s important is we got what we wanted, we got the presidency.
“They are gnashing their teeth; you can all see it shows the level of immaturity, selfishness and lack of sense of judgement.
“And to put it in common parlance, we are not sportsmen, nor are they lovable women.
“Those who are grateful to the blessings of God, God promises to multiply their fortunes.
“So we are grateful to Almighty God we’re no crying, we’re not complaining. And I can assure you that the coming elections, we will win again.”
The national leader of the APC said that lessons had been learned and that the party would make up for lost ground in the March 11 governorship election.