By Suleiman Anyalewechi
Immediate past Minister for Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, on Sunday, May 31, 2026, vehemently rejected claims suggesting that he criticized President Bola Tinubu over the handling of the All Progressive Congress, APC, primaries in Bauchi State.
Tuggar who resigned his position as Foreign Affairs Minister to contest for the office of the Governor in 2027, surprisingly lost his in the Primaries.
Reacting to his loss,Tugar, at an interactive session with the media on Saturday May 30,2026; accused the President of alleged complicity in his failure to clinch the party’s ticket, for which he had resigned his plum job.
Specifically, the former Minister accused President Tinubu of imposing his preferred candidate on the Bauchi State APC through the National Chairman and other cronies within the party.
According to Tuggar , while aspirants, including himself, were hoping for a transparent, free and fair primaries, they were shocked to observe that the party had already settled for an annointed candidate.
“We wanted an election where whoever won would emerge, and whoever lost would accept the outcome.
“But the National Chairman of our party called us, and announced that M.A. Abubakar had been selected as the Governorship candidate”,Tuggar stated .
But in a statement on Sunday from Abdulkarim Alkassim, his spokesperson, the former Minister, while denying accusing the president, insisted that his position was taken out of context.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Ambassador Tuggar did not criticize, or question President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in any way.
“Any suggestion to the contrary is false and a deliberate distortion of his remarks”, Alkassim noted .
The statement reaffirmed Tuggar’s unalloyed loyalty and unwavering commitment both to the president’s Renewed Hope Agenda, and the success of APC as a party.
According to Alkassim, the Minister, during the media interview, was only focused on some observed flaws in the internal workings of the APC in Bauchi state, particularly as it concerns the need to uphold transparency, fairness and internal democracy in the selection processes.
He emphasized that the major concern of the Minister was on the imperative of allowing party members to freely choose those to fly the flag of the party through the instrumentality of a free and fair process.
“His contention was simply that all interested candidates should have a fair opportunity to participate in an open contest” the statement added.
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