Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will not abandon his 2023 presidential quest, says the Progressive Consolidation Group PCG, a group championing his presidential ambition amidst lingering rumour to that effect.
The PCG disclosed this following suggestion that Osinbajo has decided not to run to clear the way for Bola Tinubu, another presidential hopeful. Both Tinubu and Osinbajo have yet to declare their interest in the nation’s number one job, even as sources claimed that the two politicians disagree on who among them should take the shot at the presidency.
To underscore this disagreement, a report recently claimed that Tinubu, a former Lagos State Governor and All progressives Congress, APC National Leader refused to see Osinbajo while he was in London to take care of an undisclosed ailment.
The former Lagos helmsman who spent more than three months in the United Kingdom, UK was paid visits by President Muhammadu Buhari and other top politicians in the ruling APC.
Since he came back from London, he has received massive support from groups across the country who are urging him to run, the most recent being the Speaker of the Kano State House of Assembly, Hamisu Chidari who, on Friday, said the North will support Tinubu if he decides to run.
In spite of this, PCG said Osinbajo’s support base has been growing even though the nation’s number two citizen has yet to declare interest in the race because he’s not a desperate politician. The vice president, the group said in a statement is more focused at the moment in assisting President Muhammadu Buhari to deliver his election promises to Nigerians.
According to a statement signed on Sunday, by Aliyu Kurfi, PCG’s chairman, Osinbajo has not stepped down from the race, describing the report that Osinbajo has renounced his presidential ambition as false.
Kurfi said, “0ur dear Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, SAN remains loyal to his boss, President Buhari. He is very focused on the job and he has never been known for desperate politicking.
“Specifically, it must be stated that an outrageous lie that the vice-president attended any meeting to renounce 2023 presidential ambition or bow to any politician for the same, remains an absolute falsehood. How can he renounce what he is even yet to accept or declare?
“The wishy-washy concocted reports about Professor Osinbajo having any meeting with any individual or group about a purported withdrawal from the 2023 presidential race is about an illusory event which only happened in the fertile imagination of mischievous persons.
“Every well-informed Nigerian knows that PCG is the very first 2023 support group to be formally recognised by our progressive party, APC, and we have never sought to prevent or discourage others from following in our footsteps because Vice-President Osinbajo will not subscribe to dirty political games that some typically desperate politicians play.
Kurfi said the Vice President will not be blackmailed out of the presidential race.
“While Vice-President Osinbajo’s consistent loyalty to Mr. President, the APC and Nigeria continues to energise an increasing number of groups and individuals who genuinely believe in our party’s progressive cause, greedy and desperate political elements along with their manipulated perspectives must be kept at bay,” Kurfi said.
Meanwhile, the Speaker of the Kano State House of Assembly, said on Saturday that the north would reward Tinubu for supporting President Buhari.
“All of us in the North-West are aware of the role he played in taking our son, President Muhammadu Buhari, to the Villa. So, we are going to reward him; we are going to pay him back. So, I have assured him of victory. Almost all the delegates from the North-West states are going to vote for him in the next primary elections,” Chidari said at an event organized by Tinubu Support Group, TSG in Abuja.
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