Director-General, Voice of Nigeria, Mr Osita Okechukwu, has said that there was no agreement for the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, to be President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the 2015 election.
Former interim National Chairman of APC and former Governor of Osun state, Bisi Akande, had made the claim in his recently released book. Akande claimed there was agreement to make Tinubu Buhari’s running mate in exchange for his support.
Recounting that Buhari was unable to win the presidential elections in 2003, 2007, and 2011, until a merger between policitial parties in which Tinubu played a major role, Okechukwu admitted that there was a raging debate on the proprietary of Muslim/Muslim ticket as to whether it can guarantee the victory of the APC at the 2015 presidential election.
The VON DG disclosed that the Muslim/Muslim ticket argument denied Tinubu the Vice Presidential slot and not the “scanty insinuation of breach of the agreement”.
He said;
“I am one of those Buharists who have tremendous respect for Asiwaju for the critical supplement he added to Buhari’s 12 million Vote-Bank, which resulted in our 2015 presidential election victory.
“It is not a mean feat when you consider that with Buhari’s Vote-Bank, we were unable to win in 2003, 2007, and 2011, until the merger of the legacy political parties, where Tinubu played major role.
“All I know is that there was a raging debate on the proprietary of Muslim/Muslim ticket as to whether it can guarantee the victory of the APC at the 2015 presidential election.
“This was what to the best of my knowledge which denied Tinubu the Vice Presidential slot and not the scanty insinuation of breach of the agreement. The scale of Muslim/Muslim ticket was weighty unlike in 1993 Abiola/Kingibe ticket. It was thoroughly debated and dropped, for defeat phobia.”
