• APC leader assures loyalists he would be President in eight years
Like medieval deities meeting in Elysium to perform the commencement of creation, Bola Tinubu and selected chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC), met in his house to determine the chances of President Muhammadu Buhari at the 2019 general elections.
Even though Tinubu, a two-time Lagos governor and national leader of the APC understands that he is only a part of the Buhari-APC presidential equation, he intends to cash in on his clout and defacto position as godfather of Southwest politics to influence Buhari’s emergence as the region’s favourite candidate at the next general elections.
At the meeting in his house in Bourdillon, Ikoyi, Lagos, Tinubu hosted powerful chieftains of the APC and informed them that he would be throwing his weight behind Buhari and thus working for the incumbent president’s re-election at the 2019 polls.
He told them he would be supporting Buhari for the second time because he has arrived at a gentleman’s agreement with him; the deal would see Tinubu enabling Buhari’s re-election with all his might and resources at his disposal while the Buhari reciprocates in 2023 when Tinubu intends to declare his interest in Nigeria’s presidential seat.
Tinubu is very confident in his capacity to influence Buhari’s re-election and the latter’s ability to equally influence his emergence as the APC’s presidential candidate in 2023; this elicits criticisms in several quarters of the APC leader’s overconfidence in his abilities and President Buhari’s erroneous belief that he would be in position to repay his political debt to Tinubu by enabling him become Nigeria’s president in 2023
Pundits argue that Nigeria is not their personal possession hence both men and their loyalists have no business determining the course of power devolution in the coming years. Perhaps Nigerians will rise against them and prove to them that power ultimately rests in the hands of the people.