The National Leader of
the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has insisted
that he is not plotting to replace Yemi Osinbajo as vice-president.
Tinubu stated this in
response to a report, that he may be picked as President Muhammadu Buhari’s
running mate in 2019.
A statement on Wednesday
signed by his spokesman, Tunde Rahman, read: “the people of the south-west have
absolute confidence and are exceedingly proud of the excellent job Professor
Osinbajo is doing as Vice President of Nigeria
“The attention of the
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Media Office has been drawn to the front page lead
story of The SUN newspaper of yesterday, December 13, 2017, which sensationally
and ridiculously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari may pick Asiwaju
Tinubu as his running mate for the 2019 election. This is a classic case of
utterly and irredeemably fake news.
“There is no empirical
or logical basis for this mischievously speculative story. Is it even
conceivable, as the story recklessly insinuates, that Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo would be considering returning to full church work rather than run
with his boss, President Buhari for a second term if the latter so decides
without as much as discussing such a sensitive issue with his party and with
Asiwaju Tinubu? In any case, is this story not entirely unwarranted and
indefensible as the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket has an electoral mandate of four
years out of which it has spent only over two years and a half years?”
Tinubu described the
report as an attempt to distract the current administration from its “yeoman’s
job” and instigate crisis in the APC.
“This is clearly an
attempt to distract the APC federal government from the yeoman’s job it has
been doing in rescuing the country from the deep-rooted socio-economic,
political, security and moral mess inherited from the PDP’s 16 years misrule of
Nigeria, instigate crisis within the party, stoke dangerous embers of religious
disaffection within the party and the country generally and stem the remarkable
progress being made in the reinvention and revitalization of Nigeria.
“There is greater
sanity, accountability and transparency in the management of the country’s
finances. The Boko Haram insurgency has been substantially contained. We should
not allow ourselves to be derailed from the job we are effectively undertaking
in fulfilling our campaign promises anchored on the tripod of containing
insecurity, taming the scourge of corruption and resuscitating the economy.
“The Buhari and
Osinbajo-led Federal Government is deftly steering the country out of an
economic recession that was the result of the ineptness of the PDP years of the
locusts. Asiwaju Tinubu will never support any attempt to distract Buhari and
Osinbajo from the job they are passionately doing through the kind of false
report. In particular, this story does great injustice to Vice President
Osinbajo. Here is a man of the highest integrity, moral rectitude, amazing
humility, high intellect and unimpeachable credibility. Here is a man of fierce
loyalty and absolute trustworthiness who will never do anything in word,
thought or deed to undermine his boss. His unquestionable dependability and
indisputable fidelity to his oath of office was demonstrated beyond question by
his honourable conduct during the President’s medical vacation,” the statement
added.
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