News
Buhari knows he wouldn’t have been President without me – Tinubu
President Bola Tinubu, on Thursday maintained his position that Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor rode on his back to office in 2015, a point he clearly made some three years ago in Abeokuta, Ogun State, with a graphic picture of events that led to the outcome.
At a rally in the ancient city, where he had gone to campaign for the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), ahead of its convention in 2022, Tinubu had told the story of how his political engineering led to Buhari’s presidency in his now famous emilokan speech.
He said: “If not for me talking to you today, Buhari would not have been President. It has been over 25 years since I have been serving them. The one sitting behind me, Dapo Abiodun, could not have become the governor without me.
“Since the time we started with the Action Congress AC, Action Congress of Nigeria ACN and now, the All Progressives Congress APC, I have wanted to contest for President since those times.
“This is me telling you, between my life and God Almighty, Buhari called me to be his Vice President. He said because the first time he contested, he picked Okadigbo, flamboyant, Catholic, but Nigerians didn’t vote for him.
“The second time, he picked another Igbo, Ume Ezeoke, Nigerians didn’t vote for him; that if he goes to bring the Pope to run as his vice, Nigerians won’t vote for him, but you, Bola Tinubu, you have six governors, you have never lost an election before, come and be my vice.
“He knew all the calculations then favoured us, that was why he wanted me as his vice, but I told him to let us build the party first. And when we finished building the party, after we brought in people from the PDP, Saraki now saw that those from the PDP will not get anything if Buhari, a Muslim, becomes the President and me, also a Muslim, becomes his vice, he won’t get the senate president and the senate president cannot also be a Muslim, that was how they started the campaign of calumny against me.”
Tinubu returned to the story again on Thursday against the backdrop of the controversy raise by Boss Mustapha, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), whose comments on Wednesday, appeared to debunk the President’s claims, as he held that contrary, his contribution to the coming of Buhari, was meagre.
At the launch of the book: According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience, written by Garba Shehu, who served Buhari for eight years as spokesman, the former SGF, had recounted how the Tinubu and other camps in the APC contributed only a paltry 3.5million to 15million votes that the former President scored to pick up the nation’s number job.
Acknowledging the effect of the merger of the political forces that came into play to create the outcome, he said: “President Buhari’s integrity, national stature and disciplined messaging were central to that breakthrough.
“Not only that, for us in the ACN, I do not intend to stir any controversy, but I will make bold to state this – that the merger in 2013 was midwifed to present a Buhari or create a Buhari Presidency because we looked at the statistics of the votes that were coming to the table. In the 2003 election, it was the Obasanjo/Buhari presidential contest where Buhari recorded 2.7 million votes. In the next election, he got 12.7 million votes. In 2007, it came to 6.6 million, it went back to 12.2 million in 2011.
“When we were conceptualising the merger, what would give us a head-start and obviously, it was at the back of our consciousness that the merger with the CPC, though it had only one state, the ACN had six states, ANPP three states, and when you sum up the total votes that gave us the presidency in 2015, the aggregate of the total votes was 15.4 million. So, basically, what we brought to the table after the merger outside the Buhari 12.5 million votes was three million.”
Regardless the graphic explanation, Tinubu, who conveyed his own position through Bayo Onanuga, his spokesman, maintained that without the merger there would not have been a Buhari Presidency, which ran from 2015 to 2023.
Onanuga, Special Adviser on Media and Strategy, who was a guest on Prime Time, a public affairs programme on ARISE NEWS Television network, though excused the former SGF, saying his comments were clearly misunderstood and being given different meaning, stressed that without those strategic votes, Buhari would have been nowhere despite the huge votes in question.
Hear him: “It was clear to ACN, a very strategic arm of that alliance, that without additional support, there was no way Buhari could have won the election.
“Yeah, he was getting 12 million votes if you put all the 19 states together, but in the south, Buhari was nowhere. Buhari needed the spread. ACN had six. Buhari got the votes he needed in those six states. They may not be in millions, but there were important votes. He won in all those six states, and he got more than 25 percent. At the end of the day, he won in about 25 states, more than the constitutional requirement of 24 states. Buhari never forgot the help that Tinubu rendered to him. He would not have become President without Tinubu’s assistance.”
Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, Governor of Oyo State, on Thursday, finally threw his hats into the ring by declaring his intention to run for president in 2027, with a message – history beckons.
The governor, whose ambition has been a matter of speculations for months now and who had teamed up with forces angling to force President Bola Tinubu, out of power, told a teeming crowd in Ibadan on Thursday that time had come to reset Nigeria.
At a mega-rally to announce the alliance between the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and the Allied Peoples’ Movement, (APM), Makinde, expressed worry over the dwindling fortunes of Nigerians, vowing to engage Nigerians to end the drift.
Hear him: “Without a multi-party system, there is no democracy. Where is our multi-party? Where do we go from here? We have been pushed to the wall.
“They calculated and self-opposition cannot unite but I am here to say that the opposition is the everyday Nigerian. This is the time for all us to ensure Nigeria works for us. This is the time to confront it fears. It is time to engage as citizens and not spectators.
“For the opposition political parties, this is the time to unite and work in unity and give our nation the much reset it needs. The time to reset Nigeria is now. Ibadan is the city of warriors. The first grand alliance is formed. The PDP and APM is formed. This handshake will allow us to field candidates from presidency to state Assembly. And so, I declare my candidacy for office of the president of Nigeria.”
Eyo Ekpe, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH), on Wednesday, gave a detailed account on how operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) manhandled him on Monday.
He told reporters that he was at sea on why he should fall victim to the assault against his person and eventually arrested given that was not right person directly involved in the information the agency sought.
Some operatives of the EFCC who invaded the hospital, had whisked Ekpe away after firing teargas to scare away the workers, patients and visitors to the hospital, following what appeared like a fracas the ensued over what it claimed was a routine duty in the facility.
Ekpe, Deputy Chairman of the hospital’s Medical Advisory Committee (MAC), described how an operative had first entered his office to make inquiries on why the hospital was yet to give a response to an EFCC inquiry over a medical report linked to a suspect facing trial.
He detailed how he briefed the operative that the said response was being prepared and even went ahead to show him the draft of a letter in that regard, which needed to go through the gamut of official endorsement before being released.
Hear him: “The head of that internal medicine department looked at the report and also discovered that the name of the doctor that signed the report is not a member of staff of that department.
“I had prepared prepared a response to the EFCC on Monday, May 11, 2026, based on the findings. When the EFCC operative visited my office the next morning to collect the document, I told him that the response was ready in draft. I even showed him the draft, but told him that the document still needed approval from the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital before it could be officially signed and released.
“He pretended to have accepted that. He left, but later later returned with another armed operative and informed me that I was under arrest. I asked him why. I was not the one that issued the medical report. My name is not on the medical report. The report was not issued from my unit.
“But he said I would get the answer when I get to their office. I then asked him to at least wait for my staff member who I sent on an errand before joining them. But they refused.
“They started pushing me. They dragged me out of the office. Then I began to cry while they were dragging me. They had warned me not to speak. They had taken my phone. My cry as they were dragging me, attracted the workers to the scene, who enquired what was going on, but because they ordered me not to speak, I couldn’t say anything. They had their guns.
The members of staff of the hospital initially blocked them from taking me away. They then made a call. After that I saw many masked and armed men came violently, broke the protector, threatening the people that were around and people ran away.
“They picked some staff that were still by me. they dragged me and other staff, five of us into their van downstairs. By that time they discovered that the gate of the hospital were locked. So, they drove towards the gate and packed and the commotion continued. We were inside the van.
“I was so emotionally and psychologically traumatised that I couldn’t even look out of the vehicle to see what was happening outside. But I know that teargas and live bullets were shot. That’s all I can say for now.”
Joyce Abdulmalik, of the Federal High Court, Abuja, heard on Wednesday, how Zenith Bank raised alarm over the huge transaction in one of its branches by Abubakar Malami, former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF-MoJ).
The bank said it immediately filed a Suspicious Transaction Report (STR) in respect to the transactions, during its appearance in the ongoing trial of Malami, his wife, and son over allegation of massive looting of funds belonging to the Federal Government during his tenure.
Mashelia Bata, a compliance officer with the bank, who appeared as witness in the case, where Malami, et al, are facing a 16-count charge bordering on alleged money laundering to the tune of N8.7 billion, to which they pleaded not guilty, gave the testimony while being questioned on the bank’s roles in the matter.
Details of the testimony conveyed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), stated how the compliance officer who was cross-examined by Adebayo Adedeji, lawyer to the defendants admitted that the deposits in the account statements complied with the guidelines of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Arguments had stretched when Adedeji, opposed Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), lawyer to the EFCC, who had asked the witness to explain the meaning of a suspicious transaction report, stressing that there was no ambiguity in the term.
However, Okutepa, in response, maintained that section 215(3) of the Evidence Act did not preclude him from re-examining the witness while urging the court to allow the question for proper explanation.
After Abdulmalik, agreed and overruled Adedeji, the witness told the court that banks were required to alert the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) about fund deposits coming in a repetitive pattern, adding: “Any deposition of funds seen in a pattern or repetitive, you must escalate it to the NFIU.”
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