In case recent history has failed many, and with just a few days to go for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to make a choice of its candidate next year’s presidential election, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, is telling his own version of the history of how he made Major-General Muhammadu Buhari the President and Professor Yemi Osinbajo the Vice President.
Recall that APC is in the throes of choosing a successor to Buhari, a function the President wants to perform himself, but which has thrown the party into some measure of disarray.
Many in the party are waiting for the President to return from an official visit to Spain for the issue to be resolved. Governors on the platform of the party and National Working Committee (NWC), as well as other stakeholders were unable to resolve the matter at a meeting on Wednesday in Abuja. There are 24 aspirants still in the race that has a considerable number of what political analysts have described as pretenders.
With gloves coming off in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, Tinubu boasted about his kingmaker-role in Abuja as well as Ogun State.
At the Presidential Lodge in Abeokuta, in an address to APC delegates ahead of the party’s primary in Abuja, Tinubu said:
“You have not heard this from me before. This is the first place I am saying this. 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.
“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.
“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 favoured 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.”
On his aspiration, among other South Westerners, he said, “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.
“When Atiku was being dragged out of PDP by Obasanjo, he ran to me for help, I let him have the ticket. Nuhu Ribadu came to me and I backed him.
“It has been over 25 years now that I have been serving them. This one sitting behind me, Dapo, can he say he can be the governor without me? We were together at the MKO Abiola Stadium, he was intimidated. They didn’t want to give him the party’s flag, I was the one that handed the flag to him. He knows that he cannot be the governor without the help of God and my support.
“If not for me that stood behind Buhari he wouldn’t have become the president. He tried the first time, he failed, the second time, he failed, the third, he failed; he even wept on national television and vowed never to contest again but I went to meet him in Kaduna and told him he will run again and I will stand by you and you will win, but you must not joke with Yorubas and he agreed.
“Since he became the president, I have never got ministerial slots; I didn’t collect any contract, I have never begged for anything from him, it is the turn of Yoruba, it is my turn.”