Lawyer and political commentator Deji Adeyanju has criticized former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, for downplaying the crucial roles played by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and the opposition coalition in Muhammadu Buhari’s 2015 presidential victory.
Mustapha made the remarks on Wednesday at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja during the public presentation of “According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience”, a book authored by former presidential spokesman Garba Shehu.
The former SGF appeared to be responding to a statement made in 2022 by then-APC presidential aspirant Tinubu, who claimed that Buhari would not have become president without his support.
Mustapha argued that Buhari already had a solid voter base of 12 million, and that the merger of the legacy parties that formed the APC only added about three million more votes to Buhari’s 2015 victory. He credited Buhari’s personal integrity and discipline as key factors in winning the election, emphasizing that Tinubu did not singlehandedly deliver the presidency.
“In 2015, the total votes that gave us victory were 15.4 million. Buhari already had 12.2 million. So essentially, the coalition contributed just 3.2 million,” Mustapha stated.
Reacting in a Facebook post on Thursday, Adeyanju accused Mustapha of attempting to distort historical facts.
He wrote:
“Boss Mustapha’s claim that Buhari won the 2015 election singlehandedly with his 12 million votes is not just delusional—it’s an outright attempt to rewrite history.
The truth is, the coalition won the 2015 election, not Buhari alone. Like Atiku, Buhari was a perennial loser before the coalition came into play.
Everyone—from PDP governors who defected, to those who remained, Tinubu, Atiku, Amaechi, even Barack Obama, and the millions of Nigerians who naively believed in Buhari’s promise of change—came together to unseat Goodluck Jonathan. That was what delivered victory, not Buhari’s base alone.”
