A leading contender for the All Progressives Congress (APC)’s presidential ticket, Bola Tinubu, has revealed how he led the war that culminated in the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari as president in 2015.
Addressing the APC delegates in Abeokuta, Ogun State on Thursday, the former governor of Lagos State, said Buhari would not have been president without him.
He, however, said he had to decline Buhari’s request to be his running mate.
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.
“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.”
“The second time, he picked another Igbo, Umezoake, 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.”
