The narrative contained in the authorised biography of President Muhammadu Buhari of how Asiwaju Bola Tinubu lobbied to become Nigeria's Vice President instead of Yemi Osinbajo has been discredited.
In a lengthy article by Mr Tunji Bello,
Secretary to Lagos State Government, who claimed to be part of the
process of Osinbajo's nomination, he said the author's story was "based
on falsehood that reeks of deliberate misinformation and mischief."
The book, written by Professor John Paden,
and titled 'Muhammadu Buhari: The Challenges of leadership in Nigeria,’
claimed that Tinubu pressured the President against choosing Osinbajo
as running mate in the 2015 Presidential election.
But giving a blow-by-blow account of how
Osinbajo was picked, Bello said Tinubu strongly rejected the idea of him
running alongside Buhari on the basis of Muslim-Muslim ticket, when
Chief Bisi Akande, a former Chairman of the All Progress Congress (APC), insisted.
According to Bello, Tinubu said he preferred
Osinbajo based on his intellectual capacity, his religion and the fact
that he is married to late Obafemi Awolowo’s grand-daughter, a reason he believed would easily be marketable to the old political establishment of southwest.
Read Bello's account below:
"NOTHING strengthens deceit more than
silence. And on an occasion like this, one often wonders why some people
twist events and history in order to legitimize a mission. While
ruminating over why this should be, it is not impossible to embark on
introspection by thinking out so many possibilities that politics is
replete with. This line of thought is informed by laughable events of
the last few days.
The news media have become awash with false stories of how Vice President Yemi Osinbajo came to be.
During the launch of a book: ‘Muhammadu
Buhari: The Challenges of leadership in Nigeria,’ a biography on
President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday, October 3, 2016,
Nigerians were fed with half truths by the author, Professor John Paden,
on how Osinbajo became the Vice President of the country.
I don’t know how the author came about
his story, but he totally got it wrong because what he wrote basically
is based on falsehood that reeks of deliberate misinformation and
mischief.
I know how Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu
picked Vice President Yemi Osinbajo because I was part of the process
that midwived his nomination.
In mid-December 2014, it was a Saturday
morning after President Muhammadu Buhari had been picked by All
Progressives Congress (APC), at the party’s presidential primaries at
Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere, Lagos.
I received a phone call from Asiwaju to
see him that morning. On my way to his house, I discovered that a car at
a reasonable distance was that of former Lagos State Commissioner for
Information and Strategy, Dele Alake, who was, ostensibly, heading
towards Asiwaju’s house in Ikoyi. Asiwaju must have called him too for
that task that could be explained underneath.
As soon as we arrived, Asiwaju quickly
asked us to join him in his car as we headed to a guest house. At the
guest house, the former APC Chairman, Chief Bisi Akande, Professor Yemi
Osinbajo and one renowned pastor joined us.
At the meeting, Asiwaju related to us
the urgent need to pick a Vice Presidential candidate for the APC. He
advised that we immediately discard the idea of him being nominated for
the vice-presidential slot as it was no longer possible to pick a
muslim-muslim ticket.
This he reasoned made sense if indeed we
were to be realistic in our bid to defeat President Goodluck Jonathan
in the 2015 election. He reasoned that what was important and imperative
at that time was to look for a good Christian nominee to complement
President Muhammadu Buhari.
I remember Baba Akande responded to his
aversions that he would still have preferred that Asiwaju should be the
running mate since it had been done before. Baba Akande was obviously
referring to the MKO Abiola/ Babagana Kingibe nomination.
Asiwaju responded by distinguishing the
political equation then from what was before us at that point in time.
He foreclosed that scenario as no longer possible. We all voiced our
opinions, and at the end of the day, it was resolved that we had to get a
Christian candidate.
It was at this point that Asiwaju
reminded us to be fast in coming up with an option because he felt other
geographical zones are also jostling for same position reiterating the
need for the Southwest to get it as a must.
Asiwaju audaciously told us that left
for him, and if he were to pick anyone, he would suggest Professor Yemi
Osinbajo. That Osinbajo, apart from being a brilliant legal luminary is
also a committed progressive democrat. And having been married to late
Obafemi Awolowo’s grand-daughter, it would not be a problem selling him
to the old political establishment of southwest for acceptance.
He asserted that Alake and myself having
served in his cabinet could attest to the great works he did as
attorney general during his, Asiwaju’s administration as governor of
Lagos State.
He also reasoned that the second major
factor in favour of Osinbajo was the fact that he is a strong Christian
being that he is already a pastor at the Redeemed Christian Church of
God (RCCG).
In the long run, Osinbajo’s nomination
was well received by all of us at that meeting and Professor Osinbajo
was asked to start detailing with us, further strategy sessions to which
he brought out his laptop and we all commenced a brainstorming session.
The rest of the discussion was to
strategise on how to contain other likely opponents from the southwest
zone before proceeding to Abuja to battle other regional zones in the
coming nomination.
The meeting did not finish until about
9.00pm when we returned to Asiwaju’s residence in Bourdillon. By the
time we returned to his house, there were about six serving governors
already waiting to see him from different parts of Nigeria.
What is particularly sad now is that the
book launch of the president was deployed to create a make-believe
story that puts the society at a disadvantage in history.
One would have thought that now that the
progressives, through an uncommon alliance in 2015, created an upset by
defeating, for the first time in the country’s history, the then ruling
People’s Democratic Party, it might be taken as a given that the role
of all active participants in the exercise would be correctly recorded.
But surprisingly and painfully too, such an avenue was used to create a historical distortion of facts."
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