• Says it’s my turn to be President
Former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has narrated how he made President Muhammadu Buhari achieve his aim of governing the country after contesting and losing elections for the Presidency three times.
He thereby said, without him, Buhari would not have won the election that made him become the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
For this reason, he said it is now his turn as a matter of right to become the President of Nigeria in 2023.
Tinubu stated this on Thursday, June 2, 2022, during his visit to Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, to seek the support of delegates ahead of the presidential primary of the All People’s Congress (APC) slated for Monday, June 6.
The APC leader, who spoke in the Yoruba language, recalled that he had played significant roles in the build-up to the emergence of the APC as the national ruling party.
He also narrated how he made Dapo Abiodun, the governor of Ogun State, saying, his emergence wouldn’t have been possible without his singular support.
“I have been there from the days of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), through the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and which eventually metamorphosed into the APC.
ALSO READ: Tunisia’s president sacks 57 judges accused of corruption, critics outraged
“I have served for over 25 years and helped many achieve their political ambitions.
‘Your governor, Dapo Abiodun, could not have become governor without God’s and my support.
“Go and check the video, they did not want to hand over the party’s flag to him as the APC flagbearer for the 2019 gubernatorial election in Ogun.
“I was the one that insisted that it should be given to him.
“If not for me standing before you, if I had been stubborn and rolled out drums for war, and told Buhari that, let’s fight on and insisted that I won’t cooperate with him, he could not have been president.
“He contested the first, second and third time, and he lost. And he even went on TV crying after swearing he won’t ever contest again, but I went to meet him in Kaduna to stop crying and that this is not a matter of crying, that I would support him and promise him victory.
“One thing then was that I told him he should not mess up with Yoruba nation and he agreed.
“Since his assumption of power, I never took a ministerial position, I didn’t beg for gari and soup, or begged him for any contract, and I didn’t beg him for fura or took a loan.
“All I am saying is that it is the turn of the Yoruba speaking people to become president and within the Yoruba people, it is my turn.
“I have adopted and protected many political children, but in the face of danger, one has to first protect himself.
“I have served enough. I do not want to become history. It is my turn to become president. It is a matter of right for me.
“This that I protected my political children is enough, I don’t want them to make me a mere history,” Tinubu said during his consultative visit to Ogun State, on Thursday, June 2, 2022.
Tinubu urged the delegates to shun endemic or indigenous sentiments while voting in the presidential primaries.
He disclosed to them that he sacrificed the position of vice-president offered to him by Buhari in 2015, for Vice President Yemi Osinbajo whom he nominated.
Tinubu, therefore, appealed to the delegates to vote for him to clinch the party’s ticket for the 2023 presidential election.
