The media office of APC’s national leader Bola Tinubu has responded to reports stating the former governor is getting ready for 2023 presidency by supporting Sen. Ahmed Lawan and Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila in their bids for the NASS top jobs.
In a lengthy press statement that read like poetry, the media aide portrayed Tinubu as disinterested in the choice of these two federal lawmakers, and even the 2023 presidency.
“Asiwaju, uniquely in Nigerian politics, has foregone his personal ambitions as his political ideas and policies have flourished in the hands of his allies and mentees,” said Tunde Rahmon.
He also claimed his paymaster is merely supporting President Muhammadu Buhari’s choice for the NASS leadership .
“As a loyal party member and progressive leader, he would have committed a terrible wrong by navigating against the president and party in these matters,” said Tunde Rahmon in a press statement issued on Sunday.
He also took time to hammer the current leadership of the legislative arm for working against Buhari’s policies he said were meant for the common man in Nigeria.
“Just look at the way Saraki, Dogara and their ilk hijacked the budget process these past four years…. Even worse, they cut funds intended to prosper projects that would have benefitted the average person,’ he said, adding that after four years, all efforts must be made to prevent a repeat of their malign control of the National Assembly.
As many Nigerians know, Sen. President Bukola Saraki is an archenemy of the APC and its national leaders, including Tinubu.
Saraki had said in 2018 that part of the reason Tinubu was at war with him was that he didn’t support Tinubu making himself Buhari’s running mate in the 2015 election—when all of them were in the APC.
“It should be noted that he has not forgotten the fact that I took the bull by the horns and told him that in the interest of the country, he should accept the need for the party to present a balanced ticket for the 2015 General Elections in terms of religion and geo-political zones,” said Saraki in a press statement he personally signed in August 2018.
While he eventually released his mentee Pastor Yemi Osinbajo to run with Buhari for the APC ticket, Tinubu has yet to give up on his 2023 ambition, many, including Saraki, believe. Which is why the APC stalwart is ever behind Buhari.
Saraki claimed Tinubu expressed a strong opinion “that he would rather ‘support a Buhari on the hospital stretcher’ to get a second term because in 2023, power will shift to the south-west.”
The Tinubu camp has, however, continually denied this.
We do not have the luxury to embark on fantasies about the future,” said Rahmon.
“Let the future stay where it is for now. In due time, it shall come and shall decide the shape it is to take regardless of the plans we mortals hold for it.”