Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin, has dismissed claims that loyalists of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari within the All Progressives Congress (APC) now feel politically abandoned.

Speaking with BBC Hausa shortly after Thursday’s special Federal Executive Council session convened by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in honour of Buhari, Senator Jibrin described such assertions as false and politically motivated.

“That’s not true. We have a great leader, President Bola Tinubu,” Jibrin stated in the interview.

He explained that even during Buhari’s presidency, Tinubu played a vital role in shaping the political direction of the APC and was never sidelined in the party’s affairs.

“Even when God made Buhari president, he worked hand-in-hand with Tinubu,” he added.

The Kano-born lawmaker emphasised that the foundation of the APC and its electoral successes were largely built on Tinubu’s political ingenuity.

“It was Bola Tinubu who came up with the idea of forming the APC, and it was fate that Buhari became president first,” he said.

He noted that the historic merger of the country’s opposition parties, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), and the New PDP, was orchestrated by Tinubu.

Senator Jibrin argued that claims suggesting a leadership vacuum in the APC following Buhari’s death were baseless and promoted by the opposition.

“The current president was the one who arranged everything. So when people say there’s no leader, that’s just opposition talk, and it’s not true,” he said.

His comments come amid intensifying discussions over the future direction of the APC and the political alignment of Buhari’s loyalists ahead of the 2027 general elections.