Retired General Muhammadu Buhari yesterday said he will run in the 2015 presidential race on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“With your support, I intend to offer myself for the position of the president of the republic on the platform of our great party,” Buhari told a group of supporters in Abuja yesterday.

This is the first time the former head of state will categorically say he will throw hit hat into the ring again—his fourth presidential bid since 2003.

Buhari, 71, had said in the run up to the 2011 elections that he would not be running for president again after that because age would not be on his side.

But it has been apparent over the past two years that he will backpedal, as he had been in the forefront of efforts to build the APC as a main challenger for the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

His associates and supporters had also been persuading him to take another shot as they see him as the only candidate who can muster enough votes to successfully challenge the PDP in next year’s elections.