Bala Mohammed: If Tinubu was in PDP, he would be handed the presidential ticket

Bala Mohammed, governor of Bauchi, says if Bola Tinubu, presidential hopeful of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he would be handed the presidential ticket in 2023. 

Mohammed said this on Sunday when he appeared on ThisDay Live, a programme on Arise TV.

Mohammed was one of the invitees that attended the iftar hosted by Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, for presidential hopefuls on Saturday.

Speaking on the programme, Mohammed said he met Tinubu among other eminent Nigerians, adding that the former Lagos governor would be given the presidential ticket because of his contributions if he was in the PDP.

Supporters of Tinubu have been calling on the APC to hand him the presidential ticket because he “worked hard” in getting Buhari into office.

According to the governor, he attended the iftar to prove that he is a product of consensus.

“I knew it was an opportunity to meet other eminent Nigerians who are stepping out to present themselves,” he said.

“And I was lucky I met Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, we discussed, he was calling me consensus and I told him that: ‘if you were in PDP we would have just given you the ticket because we knew that without you Buhari wouldn’t have been a president’ and so in PDP we recognise contributions.

“We have some people in Nigeria that we must recognise and it was definitely a good outing for me yesterday. The First Lady is a unifier. She has shown that she is a mother of the nation and all the presidential aspirants not only in PDP, APC but all the other parties were there. It was an opportunity to show that I’m really a product of consensus or closing rank irrespective of party differences.”

Last Friday, Saraki and Mohammed were announced as “northern consensus candidates” of the PDP following a report released by Ango Abdullahi, elder statesman.

But Tambuwal and other stakeholders rejected the report, saying it was not the agreement reached at a previous meeting of PDP presidential hopefuls.