Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday said it was too early to debate which zone of the country should produce the next president. He cautioned that such a debate would negatively affect the pace of governance by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Tinubu, who spoke after a closed-door meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, yesterday cautioned that discussing 2023 presidency now would distract the administration from providing people-oriented services and executing its development agenda.
Tinubu’s declaration came on the heels of a call by the Serving Overseer of the Citadel Global Community Church, formerly known as the Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare, that President Buhari should begin a succession plan ahead of 2023. Tinubu said yesterday: “That time is not now. We have just finished one election and Mr. President is busy sorting out the budget, working for the people of this country. Of course, restlessness of politics is going to be there, but any lover of this country will not talk about the succession plan yet. That’s the truth.”
The APC national leader urged politicians to concentrate on working to help President Buhari to govern the country well. “There’s nothing more than that. We cannot use 360 days out of the 365 days in a year to work on politics. It is not possible. Anybody talking about that now is just completely restless and not focused on the agenda of nation building and development of our country.”
The former Lagos State governor said any reasonable politician, who had worked with President Buhari would know that he would not tamper with the constitution, apparently reacting to insinuations by Femi Falana (SAN) and others of a subliminal plan by Buhari to perpetuate himself in office beyond 2023 via a third term agenda.
“Distractors are always suspicious and will make accusations, but I was in the trenches, in the struggle for democracy. I was in the opposition with Buhari, till the third term agenda of a former leader of this country failed. I know he (Buhari) will never. He has the courage and the character to refuse such a temptation even if offered to him. I believe in him and I believe Nigerians should also believe in him.
“He doesn’t need to say it to me, I’ll argue it in the corner and everywhere they bring such a thing up. However, it’s very good to hear it from him. I say congratulations to a man of character and integrity. The challenge of turning the ship of this nation around is a continuum and a continuous effort and that is what we should get ourselves concerned with.”
Bakare’s call for a succession plan came about a week after he visited Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, for a 40-minute meeting. The details of the closed-door meeting were not disclosed and he declined to speak after the session with Buhari.
The cleric had, in a state of the nation address on Sunday, urged Buhari not to allow those he described as “looters” to take over the reins of power in 2023, adding that doing so would mean that the anti-corruption war of the current administration would have been in vain.
