President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday night, asked Nigerians to come out in large numbers to cast their ballots in today’s supplementary elections.

Elections will be in 17 states today, including rerun governorship polls.

The President also denied that he had anointed candidates he was working for to win the elections by all means.

In a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, the President thanked Nigerians for re-electing him.

He appealed to them to show the same enthusiasm by coming out on Saturday to vote in the supplementary elections.

He said, ‘‘I was deeply overwhelmed by your show of incredible confidence in me, and I will never let you down. Thank you for your sincere show of support for me.”

For today’s polls, Mr Buhari said, ‘‘These elections are no less important than others before them.’’

On the rumours that he was forcing preferred candidates on voters, the President said they were baseless, calling on Nigerians to exercise their constitutional right of free choice.

He added, ‘‘I believe in the will of the people, and I cannot, therefore, put pressure on voters to elect leaders they don’t like.”

He used the opportunity to call on Independent National Electoral Commission and security agencies to ensure that today’s polls were conducted peacefully.

Punch