The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, Mr. Bola Tinubu, has denied that the speech he delivered last Thursday in Abeokuta, Ogun State during his consultation visit to the delegates of the party was meant to disparage President Muhammadu Buhari.
Recall that Tinubu while addressing the delegates in Yoruba language declared that without him, Buhari would not have made it to Aso Villa as president.
He also said he was instrumental to Prof Yemi Osinbajo becoming the vice president by surrendering “my right to him.”
Besides, he said he played a frontline role to the emergence of Mr. Dapo Abiodun as the governor of Ogun State.
“If not for me talking to you today, Buhari would not have been president. It is over 25 years that I have been serving them. This one sitting behind me, Dapo Abiodun, he could not become the governor without me.
“I nominated Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. I surrendered my right to him (Osinbajo).
“I was asked to submit three names: Yemi Cardozo, Wale Edun, and Yemi Osinbajo, but I said that if I submitted three names, it is like opening your door for a thief. They may add the fourth name and choose that one. So, I insisted on only one name. You are hearing this thing from me for the first time,” he told the delegates.
In a statement he personally signed, Tinubu said his respect and regard for Buhari as the commander-in- chief of the nation and as a person are high and unfailing.
“I shall never denigrate him. I certainly did not do so in Abeokuta. We have been political partners for a long time and I hope that partnership continues well into the future. I would do nothing to jeopardize it. I believe our party is the best hope for the nation to right itself. I believe I have a future role larger than the one I now have. I also believe President Buhari has a continuing and important role to play even after his tenure as president is over.
“Indeed, I consistently supported the president and his administration. Even when the administration has come under intense criticism, my feet have always been planted solidly in defence of the president.
“The president personally nominated me to coordinate his re-election campaign in 2019. He did this not because I opposed him or because I was indifferent. He did so, because I was firmly with him in 2015 and has stood firmly beside him ever since.
“I am proud to have been his partner in the political merger that became the APC and in making history by ousting an incumbent president for the first time in Nigeria.
“I make no apologies for seeking the party’s nomination. I believe I have something important to offer Nigeria that the other aspirants do not have, although I see them as good and committed Nigerians in their own rights. While I want this office, there are certain things I will not do and certain lines I shall not cross. I shall never belittle myself by denigrating the president or his office. I dare not seek an office and disrespect it at the same time,” he said.
Also reacting to the heat generated by Tinubu’s king maker role speech, his campaign organisation said its principal “went down memory lane to provide specific instances when he brought his political clout and strategic skills to assist individuals, groups and tendencies in the party to gain political power.
It stressed that the remarks were meant “to convince the party delegates to vote for him at the primaries.”
Spokesman for the organisation and publisher of TheNews magazine, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, said in a said in a statement that Tinubu’s remarks were mischievously interpreted and appealed to the media “to avoid over- sensationalising issues of facts and play its constitutional role of informing the electorate to make informed choices at the presidential primaries.”
“The attention of the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Presidential Campaign Organisation has been drawn to the erroneous, misleading and mischievous interpretation of his address in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun State on Thursday,” the statement reads.
“It is on record that the leading presidential aspirant in the forthcoming primaries of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, addressed the national delegates of the party in Ogun State, with Governor Mr. Dapo Abiodun in attendance.
“In his effort to convince the party delegates to vote for him at the primaries, he went down memory lane to provide specific instances when he brought his political clout and strategic skills to assist individuals, groups and tendencies in the party to gain political power.
“These factual references are already in the public realm. They have been reported and analysed in the media in the last eight years. They are therefore, matters of public knowledge.
“While we recognise that recent unexpected interventions in the timetable and the heat generated by the proximity of the event might have led to some anxiety, this campaign organisation believes that the main thrust of Asiwaju’s presentation, was that his huge contributions to the formation and electoral success of the All Progressives Congress should count in his favour as a true party man who desires to be the flag bearer.
“There is also no doubt that the fresh conditions proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari for the consideration of a presidential candidate of the party made it necessary for Asiwaju to labour to convince the delegates that he fits the bill.”
The campaign organisation therefore blamed the opposition for twisting the facts and misrepresenting the remarks made by the APC presidential aspirant.
“The campaign was surprised at the way the opposition and Tinubu’s traducers had turned his statement to give an interpretation Tinubu did not mean and did not say.
“At no time did Tinubu play any ethnic card or denigrate any ethnic group. That is surely out of his character, as Engineer David Babachir Lawal, attested in his viral WhatsApp statement.
“Tinubu’s speech in Abeokuta did not demonstrate any disrespect to President Buhari, for whom he has a very high regard, and whose re-election campaign he chaired in 2019.”
“Since the video of the speech he delivered in Yoruba hit the social media, varied interpretations have been given to the speech, which in the main was about Governor Abiodun, who in the true tradition of Yoruba culture bowed to his leader after Tinubu’s short speech.
“The Tinubu campaign is not surprised why the opposition in the APC have decided to turn and twist the statement. The former Lagos governor, a great party man, remains the man to beat at the party’s convention on Monday.
“We are least surprised that he is the target of well-calculated and most unkind virulent attacks.
“The campaign organisation hereby appeals to the media to avoid over- sensationalising issues of facts and play its constitutional role of informing the electorate to make informed choices at the presidential primaries.”
