Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir Lawal has disclosed how former Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha posed a significant threat to Muhammadu Buhari’s candidacy during the 2014 All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary.
During a Channels TV interview from 19:28, the former SGF narrated how the former Imo State governor’s unique background positioned him as a potentially unbeatable candidate. “Rochas Okorocha was almost a northerner. He grew up in the North, and he has done a lot of philanthropic acts in the North. So, we calculated that if Okorocha were to get all the Southeast votes and the North Central and Northern Christian votes, he would carry the ticket. That was our permutation because now they’re going to split, they’re going to share the rest.”
The former SGF identified how a crucial late-night meeting with Bola Tinubu proved decisive in securing Buhari’s victory. He described how the urgency of the situation forced him to seek Tinubu’s support in the early hours of the morning. “So, we went to Asiwaju around 3:00 a.m. This was few days before the election, I think three days before the convention. I laid this on the table,” Lawal disclosed during the interview.
He noted that a strategic argument was presented to Tinubu at his residence in Lagos. “We told him you have no choice but to support this man. Even if he campaigns or not, whether Buhari is on the ticket or not, it will have 11 or 12 million votes. So, all we need is a little bit, let’s say 5 million votes to match it up, to scale it up.”
He stated that the political calculations centered on securing crucial votes from the Southwest region to counter Okorocha’s potential dominance. The former SGF explained that the merger strategy ultimately proved successful. “And why did we enter the merger to get this vote, the balance of this vote from the Southwest six states, and again, of course, Edo was an appendage of the six states. We argued and argued and argued, and he (Tinubu) saw the logic that it’s better to join the winning ticket rather than support the losing ticket. And he agreed that the Southwest will deliver at the primaries.”
