Still smuggling about mobilizing national political support for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, an APC presidential aspirant, said on Thursday in Abeokuta that it is his time to become president of Nigeria.
“It is my time. I’m educated, I’m experienced. I have been serving people for a long time, bring me the presidency, it is my turn,” Tinubu said in his last campaign in Ogun State ahead of the presidential primary on June 6, 2022, Persecondnews reports.
The former Lagos governor said he led the political struggle that produced Buhari in a self-satisfied mass effort.
Tinubu, who was in company of Lagos Gov.Babajide Sanwo-Olu, his Kano counterpart, Dr Umar Ganduje, and former Borno Gov. Kasim Shettima, spoke at the Presidential Lodge where he addressed APC delegates.
Still on Buhari’s emergence as president, Tinubu said: “If not for me that led the war front, Buhari won’t have emerged. He contested first, second and third times, but lost. He even said on television that he won’t contest again.
“But I went to his home in Katsina, I told him you would contest and win, but you won’t joke with the matters of the Yorubas.
“He was crying and vowed not to contest election again and I told him that I will lead the struggle (war) to the 2015 election. Without me he would not have won.
“Since he has emerged I have not been appointed Minister. I didn’t get nor request a contract. This time, it’s Yoruba turn and in Yorubaland, it’s my tenure.
“Since the time we started with the Action Congress, Action Congress of Nigeria, and now the All Progressives Congress, I wanted to contest for president that time.
“This is me telling you between me and God Almighty, Buhari called me to be his Vice President. He said because the first time he contested, he picked Okadigbo, flamboyant, catholic, but Nigerians didn’t vote for him.”
Tinubu also publicly declared that he nominated Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate in 2015.
“The second time, he picked another Igbo, Omesioke, Nigerians didn’t vote for him, that if he goes to bring the Pope to run as his vice, Nigerians won’t vote for him, but you, Bola Tinubu, you have six governors, you have never lost an election before, come and be my vice.
“He knew all the calculations then favored us, that is why he wanted me as his vice, but I told him to let us build the party first.
“And when we finished building the party after we brought in people from the PDP, Saraki now saw that those from the PDP will not get anything if Buhari, a Muslim becomes the president and me, also a Muslim becomes his vice, he won’t get the senate president and the senate president cannot also be a Muslim, that was how they started the campaign of calumny against me.
“And I told them that I have a candidate that is a Christan that I can nominate so that the party will not break, that was how I nominated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. I surrendered my right to him (Osinbajo).
“I was asked to submit three names, Yemi Cardozo, Wale Edun, and Yemi Osinbajo, but I told them if I submit three names, they will play a game, they may make it four and pick the fourth one. I gave them one name and that was Osinbajo,” Tinubu also said.
He said he decided to make the revelation about Osinbajo’s nomination for the first time in Ogun State, being the home state of Osinbajo, one of his co-contestants.
“You have not heard this from me before. This is the first place I am saying this.”
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