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2023: Buhari’s political adviser Ojudu speaks on Tinubu, Osinbajo conflict
Babafemi Ojudu, the special adviser on olitical matters to President Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) says attempts to cause sour the relationship between V.P. Yemi Osinbajo and his godfather and arty national leader Bola Tinubu will fail.
Whle it provokes curiosity to hear Buhari’s adviser speaking for the vice president, many can see the moderating role the former senator is playing as ambition knocks the two against each other.
Ojudu condemned the role Channels TV played in setting supporter of Tinubu’s against Osinbajo’s on Monday during the station’s ‘Sunrise Daily’.
Alwan Hassan, a pro-Osinbajo campaigner and a pro-Tinubu supporter, Tunde Ajibulu, during the show defended their candidates who have not even declared their intentions.
The two guests were probably star-struck
“It is incumbent on me to state emphatically that neither the Vice President nor his office is aware of this or endorse this kind of a divisive engagement and news reports,” Ojudu said.
“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo are members of same party. Osinbajo regards Tinubu as a respected leader of a political family to which he belongs and will therefore not for any reason endorse an endeavour that seeks to pitch them against each other
The Channels show was not the first instance the pro-Osinbajo crowd would make effort to impress their candidate.
The office of the V.P. would no doubt be aware the Osinbajo group got official recognition at the APC national headquarters on the weekend.
And Ojudu wouldn’t have been unaware Tinubu’s SWAGA has completed a campaign circuit around the southwest, sensitizing Nigerians on the reason to drag him into the race in 2023.
Still feigning ignorance of Osinbajo’s connivance at the supporters’ activities, Ojudu, probably on loan to the V.P office, called again on the eagerbeavers and their enablers in the media houses to stop stoking rivalry between Tinubu and his protégé.
“The APC remains one single, indivisible party and Osinbajo remains a loyal member of the party who respects both the party structure as well as its leadership,’ he said.
The APC national leader handpicked Osinbajo, his attorney-general for years when his boss was Lagos governor, to run as Buhari’s V.P then after an exhaustive dialogue between Tinubu and Buhari before the 2013 merger and the 2015 election.
Osinbaj has been in the presidency for over six years. Many doubt if his ambition won’t have been chipping away at his loyalty to Tinubu considering the possibilities in his favours as the No. 2, citizen.
“While appreciating individuals who are clamouring for him to contest, we however want to plead that they should not draw him or allow themselves into an unnecessary and precipitous controversy,”Ojudu said.