How Saraki, El-Rufai ruined my hopes of becoming VP – Tinubu

All Progressive Congress [APC] leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu has said that Senate president Bukola Saraki and Kaduna governor, Nasir El-Rufai were behind his failure to be named President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the 2015 presidential elections.

Tinubu’s claim was published in a book, ‘Against the Run of Play’, written by Chairman of ThisDay’s Editorial Board, Olusegun Adeniyi.

He claimed that before El-Rufai, Saraki and others defected from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, he was in the running to be named Buhari’s running mate. He said after their entry, they had convinced Buhari to name another running mate as the Muslim-Muslim combination could jeopardise the party’s chances of victory.

He said El-Rufai had rather been paving a way for Tunde Bakare, Overseer of The Latter Rain Assembly, to emerge Buhari’s running mate. He lamented that despite the APC’s decision to accommodate them when they left their party, PDP, they came into the party to cause division.

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“What they (Saraki and others from the PDP) did behind my back was wrong. We always do things as a group. By the time they joined, we were already too far ahead in our processes but we accommodated them.

“We agreed to take their state structures and subsume them into the part and they all had their opportunity to nominate the candidates of their choices for different political offices.

“But they went behind to instigate Buhari and some other people in the party against me on the pretext of religion. That was not right. They were canvassing arguments that the Christians in the North would not vote for a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

“Nasir el-Rufai was also selling the same argument within the CPC (the defunct Congress for Progressive Change) because at that point, he still wanted to have Pastor Bakare brought in as Buhari’s running mate.”

Tinubu said he had told some new members that support for Buhari was paramount and the issue of a running mate could be decided after the primaries. However, he said he stepped down as he thought his insistence could cause a rancour within the party.

He said he had then presented Yemi Osinbajo as a suitable candidate to be Buhari’s running mate.