APC Primaries: Tinubu Solicits Support from Delegates
A presidential hopeful on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu has said he played a significant role in the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari as President in 2015.
Tinubu stated this Thursday while addressing party delegates at the Presidential Lodge in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
He said, “If not for me that stood behind Buhari, he wouldn’t have become the President. He tried the first time, but 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 met him in Kaduna and told him he would run again, I will stand by you, and you will win, but you must not joke with Yorubas, and he agreed.”
The APC chieftain lamented since Buhari became President, he has not benefited anything from him.
“Since he became the President, I have never gotten ministerial slots,” he said. “I didn’t collect any contract. I have never begged for anything from him. It is the turn of Yoruba, and it is my turn.”
He added that he had wanted to be Nigeria’s president while he was in the Action Congress (ACN). He said that he had played a significant role in the political careers of several Nigerian leaders, including Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
“He knew all the calculations then favoured us. 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 bringing in people from the PDP, Saraki now saw those from the PDP would not get anything if Buhari, a Muslim, became the President. If I, also a Muslim, become 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,” the former governor of Lagos State explained.
“I told them that I have a Christan candidate 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.
“I was asked to submit three names, Yemi Cardozo, Wale Edun, and Yemi Osinbajo.”
Speaking further to the delegates, he noted his role in the election of Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, saying with his political experience in the last 25 years, he deserves to be given a chance to become the president.
“Dapo that’s sitting down here, could he have become Governor without me? We were at the stadium. They tore all his posters. Even the party flag, they didn’t want to hand it over to him. I was the one who brought it.
“If he wants to meet God at the right place, he must know that without God and me, he would not have become Governor.”
