Buhari Threatened To Step Down As Presidential Candidate If Tinubu Insisted On Being VP

With barely 24 hours to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deadline for the submission of names of candidates by political parties, the name Osinbajo, which had been making the rounds as the alternative choice, finally got the official stamp of approval of the general to run with him on the party’s ticket.

Practically all but the last meeting convened for the choice of a running mate for Buhari had failed for one reason: the reported interest of a former governor of Lagos State and one of the national leaders of the party, Bola Tinubu, who made a poor show of concealing his desire for the job.
At each of those meetings, Tinubu, who yesterday said he turned down Buhari’s offer to be his running mate, was said to have made the emergence of a generally acceptable choice that excluded him impossible.

For Tinubu, party sources alleged that he saw his probable ascension to the vice-presidency as an opportunity to be “compensated” for his incontrovertible role in the establishment of a strong and viable APC, a move other members of the party, including the governors, had opposed on the grounds that he would be a hard sell to the Nigerian public.

To exemplify his all-consuming desire for the job, Tinubu was said to have attended one of the meetings with the South-west leaders of the party last weekend and told his audience a story of how Buhari had agreed to field him as his running mate.

According to him, all he needed was the consent of those at the meeting in writing, in order to convince the retired general that he (Tinubu) also had the support of the South-west caucus to emerge as his running mate.
Ostensibly, however, he was purported to have conjured the story following the honour accorded him by Buhari to choose the running mate and put himself forward for the position. But this, a majority of those at the meeting saw through, compelling one of governors to say if his statement was true, “Buhari has picked you,then you don’t need our signatures to get our support”.

Unfortunately for him, some of those at the meeting were uncomfortable with the fact that he wanted to get them to sign a communiqué, which he would have taken to Buhari, informing him that his people in the South-west, majority of whom are governors, had asked that he be fielded as the vice-presidential candidate. In Tinubu’s estimation, the story would have been difficult to refute in order not to embarrass him nor put the party in a fix.

When it became clear to Tinubu that his people had effectively opposed his emergence as Buhari’s deputy, he reportedly broke down in tears, moaning that their stance would render him insignificant in the scheme of things if he was neither allowed the opportunity to field himself nor present a candidate of his choice.“We told him frankly: ‘Look, we love you as our oga but Nigerians don’t.’ We told him we could not sell him because one, he is a Muslim and two, other issues might emerge from the woodworks that could be embarrass him and the party.“When it suddenly dawned on him that his goal was slipping from his grasp, he broke down in tears,” alleged a source, who also claimed that it was at that point everyone gave in to his demands that the post of Buhari’s running mate be zoned to the South-west and he should be allowed to pick someone else in his stead.

To political observers, Tinubu, with his overt desire, covert antics and brinksmanship, may have secured a diminished victory.
But of greater significance, he has had a taste of what it means to manage and square up against the contending interests and forces at play in a truly large national party.In the days of yore, he could dictate the pace and rhythm of his more malleable, regional Action Congress (AC) and later Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). With APC, he was shown that he can no longer pull the strings like a puppet master behind the scenes as he deems fit.With Osinbajo’s selection for the number two slot, it remains to be seen if Tinubu’s latest gamble will do his party and Buhari’s chances in the contest against the Jonathan/Sambo ticket any good. In the final analysis, the answer to this lies with the Nigerian electorate.

—ThisDay Live

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