By Oluwafemi Popoola
Former Deputy Governor of Kano State, Prof Hafiz Abubakar, has said the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, is the unnamed preferred choice of President Muhammadu Buhari.
He said the President’s description of the qualities of a winning consensus candidate he said the All Progressives Congress (APC) must look out for to be presented for the general elections fits into Prof Osinbajo’s personality.
Speaking during a live Programme on Sunday, June 5, 2022, on Channels TV’s ‘Sunday Politics,’ programme, the Nigerian politician, academic and a Professor of Nutrition Science at Bayero University, Kano State, said Osinbajo remains the best candidate for the Southern part of the country, where the ruling APC is expected to pick its presidential candidate.
“South-West is in the lead in my own opinion and will put this country first before any individual and when you put this country first my candidate comes number one,” he said.
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Speaking further, Prof Hafiz Abubakar added that, “the meeting or press release that the Presidency should be zoned to the Southern part of the country has been a wonderful encouragement but even before that, the outcome of the intensive interaction that our candidate (Prof Osinbajo) had with the delegates across this country, he is the only one out of 23 candidates able to tour the whole of 36 states of the country and FCT.
“He met with the delegates, interact with the delegates and we have had the outcome of that intensive interaction.
“He didn’t go there to lecture them, but it was a full pledge interaction by a way of allowing the delegates to ask what they want to know about, what he sees about this country, what he understood about this country and they asked very important questions.”
Continuing, Abubakar said, “When I had a part of President Buhari’s speech saying he wants a candidate that the voter will be happy about even before the election they have picked by themselves, this points to Professor Osinbajo.
“Two, in all the interactions with all the delegates, Professor had made it clear that he has an excellent working relationship with his principal and his principal has taken him into confidence in all what has been happening in government in this country and which he has thanked him severally for tutoring him in the course of governance, not hiding anything from him, we from his camp believe that eventually, it will come because he is number one in redeeming the APC itself.
“Know certainly that our party is not afraid of that, our party is interested in fielding the best candidate and for quite a long time since when this race started, everybody believes Prof Osinbajo is the best candidate of the two parties, PDP inclusive, simply because he is the person that knows and understands the challenges of this country and in all interactions, in all outings, he has displayed full knowledge of the way forward in addressing the challenges of this country.
“That he understood challenges and he has the best solutions, of course, the fundamental rule is the issue of authority in management.
As No 1, he will have the full authority to develop and implement the agenda to address some of the challenges that we face, he has the inner and better knowledge of where the solution will come from.
“From day one after the swearing-in at Eagle Square, he will go into action. He doesn’t need any space to learn on the job, to understand. He doesn’t need to be briefed. He doesn’t need that much precious time,” Prof Abubakar concluded.
