2023: Tinubu should support south-east candidate for presidency, says VON DG

Osita Okechukwu, director-general of Voice of Nigeria (VON), says Bola Tinubu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), should support a south-east candidate for presidency in the 2023 general election.

He said this on Sunday at a media briefing in Abuja, while speaking on calls for Tinubu to contest the presidency.

Although the former Lagos governor is yet to officially declare his interest in contesting, he had recently said he would not turn down the calls of his supporters asking him to run for the office of the president in 2023.

Speaking on the development, Okechukwu said Tinubu played a critical role in the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, adding that the former Lagos governor could also play a “kingmaker” role in 2023.

The director-general said having a south-eastern presidential candidate would unite the region and the country at large.

“If one is consulted by our national leader, his excellency, asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on whether he should run or not for the exalted office of the president of Nigeria in 2023, my candid advice will be that he should use his abundant Almighty God’s endowment to unite the APC and unite the south and by extension our beloved country, by backing a candidate from the south-east,” he said.

“The scriptures said there is time for everything which happens on earth.

“I am one of those Buharists who have tremendous respect for Asiwaju for the critical supplement he added to Buhari’s 12 million vote bank, which resulted in our 2015 presidential election victory.

“It is not a mean feat, when you consider that with Buhari’s vote bank. We were unable to win in 2003, 2007 and 2011, until the merger of the legacy political parties, where Tinubu played a major role.”

Okechukwu also said he is not aware of any agreement between Buhari and Tinubu on contesting the presidency in the build-up to to 2015 election.

“I don’t know of any agreement. However, as I said, the scriptures posit that there is time for everything which happens on this planet,” he said.

“All I know is that there was raging debate on the proprietary of Muslim/Muslim ticket as to whether it can guarantee victory of the APC at the 2015 presidential election.”