According to sources within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the party’s presidential candidate, has declined to select either Senate President Ahmad Lawan or Kogi state governor Yahaya Bello as his running mate.
Our source learned that Lawan and Bello, who competed in the APC presidential primary alongside Tinubu earlier this month, have been pleading with President Muhammadu Buhari and other key figures to persuade the former governor of Lagos state to pick them as his running mate.
Lawan received 152 votes, Yahaya Bello received 47, and Tinubu received 1,271 votes to win the primary.
Though Tinubu has no problems choosing a Muslim as his running mate, according to our source, a former minister in the country’s South-Western region, he flatly rejected both of them because they are both direct rivals with him and have their sights set on winning the presidency.
Yes, Bello and Lawan have been attempting to be nominated as vice presidential candidates, but I can assure you that Asiwaju is not even considering them. He had a meeting with President Buhari just before going to France, and I have no doubt that topic must have come up during their conversation given that both men had been pleading with the president to convince Asiwaju to take them into consideration.
According to him, “Even Asiwaju Tinubu’s associates are opposed to their choice because neither of them has a strong enough personality to win the necessary support in the North.”
At the 60th birthday celebration for Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, Tinubu, who used Ibrahim Masari as a stand-in on his nomination form to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), said last weekend that he is still looking for a running mate.
