Buhari receives in audience APC Chieftain Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in State House on 10th Jan 2022.
The national leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu on Monday said that he has informed President Muhammadu Buhari of his ambition to contest for the position of president in 2023.
Asiwaju Tinybu said it was a lifelong ambition and that he has the confidence, the vision and the capacity to build on the vision of President Buhari.
The APC national leader disclosed this to State House correspondents after meeting behind closed-doors with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He said he was at the State House to see the President on general issues concerning Nigeria including some of the concerns in the APC as well as security issues.
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Asked whether he has informed President Buhari of his ambition to contest for the President in 2023, he said, “I have informed the President of my ambition but I have not informed Nigerians yet, I am still consulting.”
On what was the response of President Buhari, Asiwaju Tinubu said that the President as a democrat did not ask him to stop from contesting.
the Vice President visited the APC leader in his Asokoro residence to empathise with him on his return from the United Kingdom after undergoing knee surgery.
Highly-placed sources said Tinubu had used the occasion of the Vice President’s visit last October to intimate him of his ambition.
While it is not clear what Osinbajo’s response was, sources in the know have several times quoted the VP as saying he would not contest against Tinubu, his former boss.
But other sources, however, noted that Osinbajo had always insisted that the APC leader had never told him he wanted to contest the 2023 election. This is in reference to the rumoured presidential ambition of the VP.
When contacted as to whether Tinubu and Osinbajo had spoken about the former’s ambition, Tunde Rahman, Media Adviser to the former Lagos governor refused to volunteer any comment.
Reacting to the development, Mr. Laolu Akande, the Special Adviser to the Vice President, said he was not aware of such discussions.
