By Tolani Kadiri and Anuoluwa Babalola

The Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, has denied saying he stepped down for President Muhammadu Buhari for the 2015 presidential election, Sunday Punch reports.

According to his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Yusuph Olaniyonu, what the Senate president said during an interactive session with journalists in Abuja on Saturday was that he dropped his presidential ambition once President Buhari announced his intention to contest the 2015 presidential election to be part of the solution to the nation’s social and economic problems, which Buhari had prepared himself very well to tackle.

“Saraki had, during the interview, traced the genesis of his current travails in the All Progressives Congress (APC) to his ardent support for President Buhari in the run off to the party’s presidential primaries.”

He alleged that those who were blackmailing him before the President were actually his friends and associates who were annoyed that he chose to support the presidential ambition of Buhari, instead of supporting them.

“Talking about relationship with Mr President, I want to reassure the public that some of us … if you look at the time of the APC and the period of the campaign, I was the first person that stepped down his presidential ambition once President Buhari announced that he was going to contest for the election.

“My offence was because I did not support them for their presidential ambition and I supported President Buhari.

“That is why I find this world very funny. I now find out that they are the ones now that claim that they love President Buhari more than me. It is a very, very funny world. These are people that we were begging.

“My offence was to tell them that, ‘Look, we are young; let us allow President Buhari. This is the man for today; let us allow him to contest. That is my offence. They are now the people that are now saying that Saraki does not like the President; they are the ones that like him, but time will tell, the truth will always prevail and that will be soon.”

Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, had earlier on Monday said that there was no truth in the claim by Senate President Bukola Saraki that he stepped down for President Buhari in the APC presidential race.

“There was no issue of stepping down during the presidential race in the APC. There was a presidential primary that was plain, transparent, free and fair.

“We all know those who were involved in the primary; all Nigerians know those who participated in the APC presidential primary and President Buhari emerged the winner of that process,” Adesina said.

When asked if Saraki had reached out to the President as he claimed, Adesina said, “The President has always maintained that the party is supreme. The party started a process which was truncated.

“The President has always maintained that those who truncated or aborted the process were the ones who precipitated crisis.

“The President had said in earlier statements that he would work with anybody who emerged the Senate President, but then, that did not include those who would subvert the process.”