'I was scared to contest in 2015 elections,’ President says

President Muhammadu ‎Buhari has revealed that he was afraid to contest in the 2015 elections due to previous failed attempts.

Buhari also spoke on the journey of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and how lucky the party was as a political group.

The President made the comments on Tuesday, July 14, 2015, when he broke the Ramadan fast with prominent members of the APC.

Buhari said:

“I always like to go down the memory lane to show how lucky we are as a political group. At no stage was the decision taken by chance, it was all deliberate. The leaders of the parties felt the only way to wrest power from the PDP was for us to come together.”

“I, in particular, was scared after previous failures of the elections of 2003, 2007 and 2011. We dissolved our various parties to form APC, then we applied to INEC, for once I was grateful to INEC.”

“We had gone with nine people to INEC to apply and INEC advised us that we needed at least 25 people to form a political party. We were able to go back and raised 35 members across the country and then successfully registered the party. INEC then informed the federal government that we have met the requirements hence we cannot be denied registration. Many doubting Thomases said merger had never succeeded in Nigeria but here we are.”

Buhari also urged members of the party to put aside their differences so that the party can move forward.