A coalition involving about 28 groups has cried out over its inability to reach the President of African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina after procuring the N100m nomination and expression form of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The coalition said though it has physically picked the forms at the International Conference Centre (ICC) in Abuja, they did so without the consent of the ecomomic figure.
They added that despite not being able to reach Adesina 24 hours after paying for the forms, he remains the best man to pull Nigeria out of the current mess it found itself.
Leader of the Youth Arise Movement, one of the groups in the coalition, Babatunde Ademola, made this known.
He added that the coalition remains confident that Adesina will respond to their calls and will wrestle with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, among host of others to clinch the presidential ticket of the APC.
In his words, “I am one of the group leaders of this team of 28 groups that have been working tirelessly and consulting across the country and even outside the country to ensure that we get him to come and obey the clarion call.
“I will tell you significantly that we have tried to reach out to him, we have sent messages, we have looked at any which way we will get across to him. We have not gotten any definite response from him, but because we know the Constitution of Nigeria is very clear, and the Act that governs the umpire for electioneering is also clear, and we know that the timing is not on our side and we believe that for such person after we have looked at the situation of this country, we need Dr Adesina to come and solve Nigeria’s problem and because of this, we have put our resources together.
“It is very certain that such a man who knows very well that when he was contesting for the AfDB, the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, supported him wholeheartedly for the first time, supported him wholeheartedly for the second time, such person will not want to throw away the call of over 200 million Nigerians and also feel that he cannot defend the legacy and the goodwill of the President of Nigeria.
“It is a time for him to come and reciprocate the good gesture that President Muhammadu Buhari has given to him by accepting this forms that we have struggled to purchase.
“It is not easy to gather N100 million but we have ensured that we gather as many people as possible. Like he said, on the issue of if we are going to meet up, we have people on ground and we are very certain that he is a member of APC before we begin to do what we are doing. So, we are calling him to come out and accept this form from us. It is a gift to serve this country and solve our problems. We are calling Adesina because it is a call to save Nigeria and I think he is going to accept”.