Vice President Osinbajo’s Camp Consults With South-West Leaders Over 2023, Plans To Drown Tinubu

Pro-Yemi Osinbajo groups have started strategising on weakening the influence of former Lagos State Governor, Bola Tinubu, in the South-West as the race for the 2023 presidency thickens, CaracalReports has learnt. 

Already, the chairman of the Public Opinion Leaders Group, a unit of The Progressive Project (TPP), one of the groups rooting for Osinbajo presidency in 2023, Shettima Umar Abba Gana, said Tinubu’s declaration would not change their minds, maintaining that the Vice President remained the best candidate for the presidential seat. 

In an interview on Tuesday, he said, “What is happening is a democracy, he (Bola Tinubu) wants to run, we want our own man (Osinbajo) to run. That is the beauty of democracy; we want our man to come out because we believe he has some good qualities.

“Bola Tinubu also has some qualities, let them all come out; democracy cannot be only one aspirant let them all come out that is democracy.

“Osinbajo did not tell us to come out and campaign for him. We came together on our own and want him to come out and contest and we’re hoping that he’ll come out because he is a very good candidate.

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“In a democracy, everybody has his own opinion, his own wish and his own vote. Let them come out and let us go to the field. “Ours is that this man is good, let him come out and we’ll support him. What we’re doing has nothing to do with Bola Tinubu coming out or not, let him come out and let everyone that wants to come out. It’s a democracy that is not a problem.”

Sources told this newspaper that the Osinbajo camp had begun consulting with South-West traditional and political leaders to support the Vice-President and to shun Tinubu, saying the former Lagos State governor “is too old for Aso Rock and has many corruption cases in the eyes of Nigerians.” 

After meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Monday, Tinubu had said he had informed the president of his 2023 presidential ambition.

With his disclosure to contest the presidency, Tinubu is likely to clash with his political ‘godson’, Osinbajo, who is also believed to be interested in the presidential race.