A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain and former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has credited President Bola Tinubu for single-handedly engineering his emergence even though his party man and former President Muhammadu Buhari worked against him.
Lamido said Tinubu was adept at studying the system and manipulating it for his own advantage.
A Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain and former Governor of Jigawa State, Sule Lamido, has credited President Bola Tinubu for single-handedly engineering his emergence even though his party man and former President Muhammadu Buhari worked against him.
Lamido described Tinubu as a daring and self-made man who defied all the odds to win the 2023 presidential election.
He said this during a recent interview with the Nigerian Tribune, where he revealed some of the intrigues that went down in the build-up to the all-important election.
According to Lamido, Buhari never supported the former Lagos State Governor and didn’t trust his Vice, Yemi Osinbajo, therefore he wanted the former Senate President, Ahmad Lawan to succeed him.
He noted that this was clear when Tinubu was in Abeokuta, Ogun State, before the All Progressives (APC) convention in 2022 where he boasted that it was his turn to rule Nigeria.
The PDP chieftain said Buhari was watching on with naivety even though he never liked Tinubu.
“He didn’t even trust his own vice president, Professor (Yemi) Osinbajo; he wanted Ahmed Lawan, but his calculation was absurd. You have done eight years for the North and you wanted another Northerner for another eight years?! No. Maybe later but there are some dynamics which you can’t alter, not in Nigeria of today.
“The president of Nigeria, after being in office for eight years, lacked the courage to push through his anointed choice. He was there at the convention and Tinubu whom he never liked, he never believed in emerged. Tinubu knows that his victory wasn’t from Buhari, therefore, he owes him nothing.
“He wasn’t the choice of Afenifere, Obasanjo never liked him, but he became president. All the other groups, including the governors, were there but he won. He was determined to demolish all obstacles and he crushed them,” Lamido said.
Lamido says PDP working to beat Tinubu in 2020
The former Jigawa Governor said the PDP has started working towards ensuring that it dislodges the APC in 2027 despite the internal wranglings in the opposition party.
“We are working hard, but it is a huge task. It is going to be difficult with Tinubu, with his hold on the country, on the economy, and his audacity to say this is where I stand against Nigeria’s interest. It is something else. Tinubu is very daring; he is his own creation, he is a self-made man, right from Chicago, what he went through on the streets.
“Look at how he was able to fight the Alliance for Democracy and Afenifere and then Obasanjo. At the APC convention, Buhari was against him but he defeated Buhari.
What are you talking about? Don’t underestimate a man like that. Look at how he made it in life. He confronted all obstacles to get to where he is today, at the apex.
“There is no Nigerian like Tinubu who has been there on his own. Every established political arrangement, every institution, he demolished them. Now that he is in charge, he is not going to be easy to deal with. With Tinubu, Nigeria is a fiefdom, and Tinubu is the emperor. And if you watch him closely, he doesn’t care,” he added.
