The Presidency has said that President Muhammadu Buhari will not manipulate the process to pick a successor ahead of the 2023 Presidential elections.

The response follows a call by the Senior Pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly, Tunde Bakare, who urged the president to be involved in the choice of his successor in order not destroy his legacies.

Speaking on a monitored programme, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, stressed that contrary to call, President Buhari will ensure that the process is free, fair and credible.

He added that though the president is interested in who would succeed him, but will not pick a successor.

Adesina also stressed that the president will ensure that his successor builds on the gains of his administration and will not allow looters to find their way to power.

The National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole has said that the rumoured third term bid of President Muhammadu Buhari was planted by the Peoples Democratic Party.

Oshiomhole, who addressed State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with the President in Abuja, stressed that most Nigerians are yet to forget what the PDP tried to do to promote the third term agenda while in power.

He alleged that the former president who tried to do the third term, emptied the treasury to bribe members of the National Assembly.

Adams Oshiomhole noted that he had been under attack by some party member because of his performance.

Mr. Femi Falana asked the counsel to release the embattled Shiite leader, Ibrahim El-Zakzaky in line with the President’s promise to respect the rule of law.

 Falana’s request is contained in his letter to the Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami were he alleged that the AGF gave contradictory reasons to justify the continued detention of the IMN leader.

He asked that the Federal High Court presided over by Justice             Kolawole now at the Court of Appeal had on December 2016 declared as illegal and unconditional the arrest and detention of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenat.

The senior lawyer also made reference to the recent release of Omoyele Sowore and Sambo Dasuki from custody, insisting that some measure of action should be metered out on El-Zakzaky.

The IMN leader and his wife have been in detention since 2015, when some of his followers clashed with soldiers in Zaria, Kaduna state.

The Federal Capital Territory Police Command has arrested the mastermind of the foiled robbery of a first-generation bank in the Mpape area of Abuja last Saturday.

The suspect, a barman identified as Ernest was nabbed at his hideout by police detectives and is presently being held at the command headquarters by old CBN building, Garki, Abuja.

The police had earlier arrested four suspects and gunned down the fourth member of the robbery gang identified as Patrick during the operation.

The FCT Commissioner of Police, Bala Ciroma, had on Tuesday paraded the gang members including a bank employee, Larry Ehizo, Timothy Joe, Princewill Obinna, and Elijah David.

Ernest Ewin told the police his side of the story in the failed robbery. Ehizo who drove the gang members to the bank in the robbery expected to rake in N7 million said he lied in his first statement.