An All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain and former House of Representatives member, Honourable Farouk Aliyu, has disclosed that the Southwestern bloc of the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, proposed Professor Yemi Osinbajo as Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate as early as 2011.
Speaking during a Channels TV interview, Aliyu revealed how the rejection of this suggestion contributed to the initial failure of political merger discussions between northern and southwestern political forces. “In 2011 Osinbajo was the person given to us as vice presidential candidate, but in the wisdom of our team, we refused to take him, and we took Pastor Bakare, and that’s why the merger didn’t work out that time,” Aliyu stated, explaining the decision that derailed early coalition efforts.
The former lawmaker described how this setback led to renewed collaboration between the political camps. “And then we realized, and our principal, Muhammadu Buhari, realized and kept saying all the time that, ‘Look, we found out that we cannot go it alone,’ and he has been in talks with Tinubu,” he explained.
He detailed the extensive consultations that followed between the two political leaders. “We’ve visited Tinubu’s Bourdillon premises several times, just like he visited Buhari in Kaduna several times. We had meetings in my office in Abuja; Aregbesola can be a witness, Fayemi, Dele Alake, and others can be witnesses to this,” he revealed.
The former Secretary General of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, had claimed that former President Muhammadu Buhari already possessed 12 million votes that propelled his victory to become President in 2015, while insinuating that nobody made Buhari President.
However, Buhari loyalist Farouk Aliyu revealed how President Tinubu rallied southwestern votes for Buhari to emerge in the APC primary. Aliyu confessed that the northwestern part of the country where Buhari originated did not vote for him throughout his political journey in the APC primaries, emphasizing that Tinubu played a significant role in Muhammadu Buhari’s emergence as the party’s candidate.
The Buhari supporter argued that anyone who denies this historical account probably does not know the true history of events, adding that his senior colleague Boss Mustapha was certainly not part of that political equation during the crucial period.
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