The national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has been endorsed by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal as the best replacement for President Muhammadu Buhari when his tenure elapses in 2023.
Babachir issued the endorsement in an interview he had with Daily Sun newspaper which was published on Sunday, February 2.
Although Babachir said he was not advocating a switch of power from the north to the south, he maintained that Tinubu, a southerner, was the best person to replace Buhari in 2023.
He said: “I am advocating that the best man should take over from Buhari. And for now, that best man is Bola Ahmed Tinubu who is from the Southwest by coincidence.”
Babachir went on to list the presidential qualities of Tinubu, including his ‘glorious’ years as Lagos state governor and his subsequent roles in the election of his successors.
“I have known him very well and not a matter of being a friend. My knowledge of him is that he will make an excellent president. He has demonstrated that he is a good leader. He was a good governor of Lagos State. That is why all his successors are working on his footprint. Even though some of them wanted to claim that they know, they found out that the structure he laid is a solid one.
“People can insult him, but every governor consistently builds on his structure to the extent that Lagos State has consistently produced the best governors in their dispensation starting from Tinubu, Fashola, Akinwunmi and Sanwo-Olu, who is just starting.
“Another quality that he has which Nigerians must look at is that there was a time in the Federal Executive Council of 36, I think he had four. If you look at all other governors, the only one that handed over to his deputy was Zamfara and because he had no choice.”
On the southwest’s security initiative, Operation Amotekun, Babachir Lawal said he smelled a rat even though he is not personally against the outfit created by the region’s governors.
“My own personal view about Amotekun is that either there is more than meets the eye or the six governors have not managed the issue very well.
“What baffles me is Rotimi Akeredolu, who is the governor of Ondo State and Chairman, Southwest Governors Forum. He’s Senior Advocate of Nigeria and he could not advise his colleagues on how to go about it. That is why I say there is something in it more than we see.”
