A signatory to the 2013 merger that gave birth to the All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Buba Galadima said President Muhammed Buhari and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu reached an agreement on Tinubu to become the next president after the end of Buhari’s tenure in 2023.
In an interview with Punch, Galadima, who was a close associate of President Buhari, said the president would not impose anyone on the party.
According to him, “You don’t need to be a prophet or soothsayer to know that the President will indeed anoint whosoever he wants to be the candidate of the APC. But what one needs to look at is whether he could do that with some sense of decorum, with some sense of decency, with some sense of consideration for the opinion of the majority members of his party. My answer is No. Therefore, whoever he anoints will cause bickering, infighting, and a lot of anti-party activities. This will bedevil the APC.
Asked if there was a written agreement between Buhari and Tinubu on who will be the next president, Galadima said “Not perfectly an agreement, but there was an understanding because Tinubu with one other person and the President also with another person sat down and the information we got was that they agreed that if Tinubu would help Buhari win, he would become the Vice-President. When that was not possible, they called him to ask him to assist because of the exigencies of the time, which wouldn’t have allowed for a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
“They said that whatever he does, he should deploy and make sure that Buhari becomes President and that when he (Buhari) is going, he would also do whatever he would in his powers to assist Tinubu to become President. It looks like they are now going back on that understanding. And a promise is a promise whether written or unwritten because if you can subvert it, God knows your heart. And God never accepts betrayal. When you are committed, whether it is sour or bitter, or tasty, you have to swallow it.
“Now, it looks like they want to go back on that understanding with Tinubu. This is why Tinubu is bitter and I understand this bitterness, because of what has happened to him, which I told him years back. I told him what was going to happen to him. And everything that I predicted those years is now happening. My prayer for him (Tinubu) is that he should come out of this unscathed and healthy. That is my biggest prayer for him.
“But for him, it looks like he has already been subverted. The only way he can get his momentum is if the party agrees to do primaries. If the party agrees to go to the primaries, I have no doubt in my mind that Tinubu may emerge victorious, but as far as the consensus which they want to adopt is concerned, he is out of the game.”
He also highlighted that while the agreement was being made Tinubu was in the meeting with a former governor while Buhari came with a sitting governor.
“Tinubu came to the meeting with a former governor while Buhari came with a sitting governor. That is why that governor is solidly behind Tinubu today and because of the fear of God. But I wouldn’t want to mention the names of the two of them, because Tinubu himself has alluded to this kind of understanding.
On what may befall APC if Tinubu is schemed out of the primary Galadima said, “Well, the truth of the matter is that Nigerian politicians are cowards. Nigerian politicians are unprincipled. If they are courageous and principled, the APC would have broken into pieces a long time ago. But because of betrayals, God will never allow the APC to succeed, and even if they succeed, they will never have peace.”
He also spoke on the threat by the APC National Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu, to punish Tinubu on the comment he made in Abeokuta.
“Who is the APC chairman? Where was he when some of us were fighting for Buhari? Where was he? He should remember what he did to us in 2003. Is it because Buhari has forgotten?
“If Buhari recollects what the APC national chairman did to him, he would not even ever allow him to shake his hand, let alone make him chairman”.
