2023: Tambuwal Shuns Power Shift, Declares Presidential Interest

By Akinwale Kasali

Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal is not one of those Northerners who believe in power rotation. He does not think that the time has come for the office of the President to move from the North to the South. Proof?

On Monday, January 31, 2022, Tambuwal joined the list of aspirants jostling to take over power from President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

This will be his second shot at the office of the President  under the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

In 2018 when he first tried, he was roundly defeated at the Primary held in Porthacourt by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, who lost to President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 general election.

From 2011 to 2015, Tambuwal was the Speaker of the House of Representatives before joining the Sokoto Governorship race, where he won the PDP Primaries and was victorious at the polls.

He is on his second term in office as Governor, having won by a slim margin of less than 500 votes in 2019.

It is expected that Tambuwal is likely to lock horns again with at least, two of those with whom he locked horns in Porthacourt. While one of them, former Senate President, Bukola Saraki has announced his interest in a Facebook post, Atiku is expected to declare soon. Already his foot soldiers, led by  PDP Chieftain, Chief Raymond Dokpesi,  are criss-crossing the country watering the ground for him for the big day.

With Tambuwal’s declaration under the PDP, he joins another  former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim, Saraki and Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa in the line-up of those who have already declared interest in the Presidential office under the PDP.

For the records, Tambuwal was one of the PDP Chieftains who decamped to the All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2014, and made it possible for the PDP to lose the 2015 elections to the APC. He redecamped to to the PDP in 2017.