Ikimi: Tinubu plotting Muslim-Muslim ticket

A leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Tom Ikimi, says his opposition to an all-Muslim ticket in next year’s presidential election might have truncated his bid to contest for the chairmanship of the party last week.

In a statement on Wednesday, he accused Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, another APC leader, of bearing a grudge against him because of his insistence on religious balance in the ticket.

He said Tinubu unilaterally picked all members of the national executive council of the party at the Abuja convention in furtherance of his “caucus plot”.

The former minister of foreign affairs said when he realised that party offices had been zoned “alien to the constitution of our party”, he also asked that the positions of president and  vice-president be zoned at the same time.

“My suggestion was motivated by strong information I had received of plots being hatched to steam role a Muslim-Muslim Presidential and Vice Presidential ticket for the APC in the 2015 elections and with specific individuals in mind as the beneficiaries,” he said.

It is widely believed that Tinubu, a Muslim, is planning to be running mate to whoever emerges as the presidential candidate, who is almost certain to be a northern Muslim.

But TheCable reported on Monday that Tinubu had decided to drop his interest in the VP slot “in the interest of the party”.

Former minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, recently left the party over the same issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket.

Ikimi said: “I have strongly opposed the option of a Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian presidential ticket for our party in the 2015 elections. I am a proud Roman Catholic Christian who has a lot of respect for our Muslim countrymen. I studied Architecture for five years at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and I’m known to have a lot of committed personal friends who are Muslims.

“But we must not ignore the realities of the moment or be insensitive to the religious question in our country. In any case, both Christians and Muslims abound in both Northern and Southern Nigeria who can contest the Presidency. In fact, the choice of presidential candidate should be open to the whole country.

“Those who imagine that the now notorious secret caucus [in APC] would succeed in producing a Muslim-Muslim Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates for APC for the 2015 election and if that is why this mess of owning the National Executive Council is all about they must be living in cuckoo land.”

He traced his trouble with Tinubu to the 2007 presidential election.

“Asiwaju Bola Tinubu may recall that mostly for the same reasons I opposed his desire to run as vice presidential candidate to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar under the AC (Action Congress) banner in 2007. We settled for Sen. Ben Obi from Eastern Nigeria. I know he nurses a grudge against me for the position I took which was strongly supported by leaders from five zones apart from the south-west. I have no regrets whatsoever for my courage to stand up against oppression or dictatorship,” he said.

Ikimi said Tinubu was also opposed to his independent-mindedness, hence his preference for Chief John Odigie Oyegun as chairman.

“I am informed that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is not comfortable with my independent-mindedness and he holds the view that I cannot be controlled. He prefers someone that he believes will do his bidding,” he said.

APC has not officially reacted to Ikimi’s memo but a political associate of Tinubu told TheCable that Ikimi could not be trusted to lead the APC.

“We all know his antecedents. It will be suicidal to make Ikimi chairman. He will sell us to President Goodluck Jonathan,” he said.