Garba Shehu : Only APC can use Presidential Villa

Presidency on Sunday justified the recently held National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of All Progressive Congress (APC) saying only the ruling party can use the Presidential Villa for meetings because the APC won the Presidential election and the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), enjoys the benefits of incumbency.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, however, said the Peoples Democratic Party and others would not be able to use the Villa for similar activities because they didn’t win the election last year.

Shehu said this on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme on Sunday while reacting to criticisms from the PDP that Buhari was wrong to have dissolved the APC’s National Working Committee and inaugurate a caretaker committee at the council chambers.

The President’s spokesman said, “Incumbency confers on a leader a number of advantages. The chairman of the PDP cannot say today ‘give me a room in the Villa, I want to go and sleep there’. They will not admit him because he didn’t win an election.

“The opposition cannot go to the Villa and say give us a conference room, we want to use it. You have to win an election to go in there. Those who won elections before us have used the Villa. When we have finished our own term we will leave and new people will come to come and occupy it. The incumbency advantages are there. That is the essence of winning. If you lose, you don’t get there.”