Ekiti State Governor and presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has disclosed the reason he stepped down for APC national leader, Bola Tinubu, at the party’s national convention for the presidential primaries.

Fayemi had on Tuesday night stepped down for Tinubu and urged Ekiti State delegates to vote for the former Lagos State Governor during the APC presidential primary election held at Eagle Square, Abuja.

Tinubu was later declared the winner of the primaries polling 1271 votes.

He defeated former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who came second and third with 316 and 235 votes respectively.

However, Governor said the unity of the country was a major consideration for him in taking the decision to step down for Tinubu, describing him as “a leader, mentor and a great fighter for democracy and Nigeria”.

He added that his action at the convention was honourable and expected of a typical Ekiti man to support intentions geared towards the progress and prosperity of the region.

He stated that he was happy over the outcome of the convention, adding that it has further strengthened and solidified the unity and cohesion of the party against predictions from some quarters that the APC would collapse at the convention.

Fayemi, who is the Chairman, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, said these while addressing a mammoth crowd of APC supporters that welcomed him in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital on Wednesday.

The governor further disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari, the APC presidential flag bearer, Tinubu, the party’s National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, APC governors and other critical stakeholders would be in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday for the party’s mega rally in support of the Ekiti State Governorship Candidate, Biodun Oyebanji.

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He expressed confidence that the APC would win the June 18 governorship election in the state and use it as “a springboard for the many electoral victories that would follow at the state and national level”.

He said the electoral victory of the party’s presidential candidate would start from the success of the party in the forthcoming gubernatorial election.

Fayemi further expressed his appreciation to all Ekiti traditional rulers, elders, party members, and the people of the state for their support on his presidential aspiration.

The governor urged APC members to work for the election of Oyebanji in the June 18 gubernatorial election.

Governor Fayemi said: “There can be victory in what appears to be a loss. There can be success in what others call failure. We had to act in unity and cohesion for the manifest destiny of Nigeria to arrive, for the unity of Nigeria to be consolidated, and for the success of our party to be whole.

“Before we went into the convention, the story was that APC will collapse, that we will come out of the convention in smattering, that everything will go haywire. We have come out of our convention stronger, victorious, and better consolidated.

“We have come out of our convention energised to ensure that the ‘poverty developers party’ do not come back either in Ekiti or in Nigeria and all other pretenders who are running helter-skelter, pretending that they have what it takes to govern, they will meet their waterloo right from June 18 right to the presidential election in March 2023, and we shall win and we shall be victorious,” he stated.

The Star