The leadership of the All Progressives Congress has said the party may punish its national leader and presidential aspirant, Bola Tinubu, over his utterances about the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) a few days ago.
The APC national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, disclosed this while briefing journalists at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja on Saturday.
Recall that while Tinubu was on a visit to party delegates in Ogun State on Thursday, he was seen in a viral video boasting about how he helped Mr. President and some persons win elections previously, i.e Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun.
Though Tinubu issued a statement to clarify his utterances about the President on Friday, Adamu, however, said the apology tendered was not enough.
Adamu stated, “It is amazing how a fellow APC person would make that kind of comment in that kind of circumstances about the president. We take exception to this. It has shown that he does not show any appreciable level of respect for the office of Mr President.
“Therefore we want to make it public that we are saddened by what we saw in the video, in that reportàge and we condemn it in the strongest of terms. We do hope that he would never say that kind of thing again, particularly of the APC extraction to make such kinds of comments.
“Yes, yesterday we saw some part of a retraction but that effort is not adequate. It is not sincere. It is not in-depth enough. It doesn’t wipe out the impression that that event has left in our minds.”
On whether there would be punitive measures against Tinubu, the chairman said, “At the time this event took place, the screening committee had not presented their report to us at all. And was trying to suggest that anybody was under any threat. So there was no justification for the time that this thing happened.
“This morning we saw some traces of withdrawal of those statements. You see these are statements about his intention of actual action.
“Yes, we can’t say we refuse not to see the papers. It happened. He said he has the greatest respect for the president. You see in Hausa there is a proverb that once you take hold of any amount of grass from a thatched house and you pull it off from the roof, you can’t replace the same amount of grass. What is out is out.
“What he did say was not an apology. It’s just like trying to retract and you say I didn’t mean this. It’s a problem of misinterpretation. It is not a regret.
“If there is the need to penalize any member of the party, not just Bola Tinubu, anybody, we will bring him to the party book. Anybody as we watch events as they unfold.”