Elder statesman and former presidential adviser, Tanko Yakasai, has said that there is an unwritten understanding that when President Muhammadu Buhari finishes, the Vice President will likely be the next presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
He also said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) might field Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo or Bola Tinubu, a national leader of APC, in 2023.
Speaking with The Interview, Yakasai said the region played a key role in the emergence of Buhari in 2019.
“The current calculation is that the vice-president is from the Southwest. Clearly, there is an unwritten understanding that when Buhari finishes, the Vice President will likely be the next presidential candidate of the APC,” he said.
“The Vice President is a Yoruba man. Even if it is not Osinbajo, somebody from there, probably Tinubu, will likely emerge as the candidate of the party.
“And with the performance of the party in the southeast, I don’t see any possibility that the party will think of giving its candidacy to the southeast as against the support it earned from the southwest.
“Apart from voting, don’t forget that there were some material support which APC enjoyed from the Southwest.” On his choice of Atiku Abubakar Yakasai said: “No, I do not. Quite alright, I supported Atiku because I don’t believe that Buhari has the capacity and the competence to handle the Nigerian problem.”
On the issue of the leadership of the 9th senate, Yakasai said: “Well, they have been touting this idea for a long time.
Remember when the current Senate was convened after the 2015 election, they wanted Ahmad Lawan to be the Senate president,” “It was the rupture in the party that led a chunk of party senators to team up with PDP senators to get Bukola Saraki and Ike Ekweremadu as president and deputy president of the Senate.
“What I am surprised about, I thought what happened to them in the last dispensation would have been a lesson for them to allow legislators to decide who should be their leaders.
“I worked with National Assembly for four years. I know the mindset of members of the National Assembly. They believe that they have their own mandate separate from the mandate of the President.”
