Tinubu Releases Statement On Him Replacing Osinbajo As Buhari’s 2019 Vice Presidential Candidate
The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has debunked the news that he will be replacing Yemi Osinbajo as President Muhammadu Buhari’s Vice Presidential Candidate, in 2019.
Tinubu in a statement by his Media office, maintained that he and the people of the South-West had unfettered confidence in the ability of Osinbajo as Vice President, and President Muhammadu Buhari to continue to deliver.
The statement partly reads: “The attention of the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Media Office has been drawn to media reports that President Muhammadu Buhari may pick Asiwaju Tinubu as his running mate for the 2019 election.
“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 such 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?
“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.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Asiwaju Tinubu has absolute confidence and faith in both President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo who have been working hard harmoniously in offering inspirational leadership to Nigeria at a most critical period in her history. The haemorrhaging of the national economy through the wanton and unprecedented corruption that obtained before the advent of the APC Federal Government has been stanched.
“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.
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“The Buhari and Osinbajo-led Federal Government are 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.
“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 a 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.
“Asiwaju Tinubu and 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.
“Asiwaju takes serious exception to the insinuation in some other quarters that there was ever any so-called frosty relationship between Buhari and Tinubu.
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“As Asiwaju had cause to point out recently, having been elected President, Buhari had to be given the space to run his government. There have always been and will always be channels of communication between Tinubu and Buhari as members of the same party. Their interaction must not necessarily always be conducted in the public space.
“Contrary to the impression being created, Asiwaju’s politics is not that of unbridled personal ambition for selfish interest.
“When at some point in the build-up to the 2015 election, President Buhari offered him the Vice Presidential ticket, Tinubu gratefully and publicly thanked the President. When it turned out that such an offer would not be in the interest of the party and would play into the hands of enemies of change, Asiwaju unreservedly and passionately threw his support behind Osinbajo as the best man for the job. His opinion has not changed. Indeed, his confidence and belief in Osinbajo have been amply justified by the latter’s sterling performance in the office. This attempt to cause disaffection between the duo cannot and will not fly.”
