Northern Govs Had Picked Tinubu Before APC Presidential Primary – Hon. Doguwa

The Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Doguwa on Wednesday reacted to the emergence of the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress.

According to Doguwa, the victory of the APC National Leader in the presidential primary of the ruling party did not come as a surprise to them.

Doguwa stated this during an interview on Channels TV on Wednesday.

He described Tinubu as Buhari of the South due to his political strength in the region.

Doguwa said, “The emergence of Bola Tinubu to us today as the presidential flag bearer of our great party did not come to us as a surprise because this is someone we have kept telling people that he invested too much in the political space of this country.”

He said Tinubu “has the network and the connection of people, and has what it takes to deliver”.

“To me and a great number of people from Kano and indeed the north-west of Nigeria, we never found this as a new development; we expected much of that

“The emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the presidential flag bearer to me is scientific because two major factors that you can’t take away from our political space today is the fact that you have two (Muhammadu) Buhari’s in the nation; the Buhari of the north and the Buhari of the southern part of the country, in terms of their unprecedented popularity, connection and in terms of having what it takes to even deliver.

“So, to me, Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the Buhari of the south and we have our own Buhari in the north and when you have the Buhari of the south and north on the same page, that means success all over. I want to believe that his emergence to many Nigerians was not only a surprise but is the least that we expected. We expected from the outcome of the election, we expected that our delegates will be reasonable enough to pay back to this person whose dues he has paid extraordinary.

“We are all proud of the emergence of this gentleman to run for our party because he is one person, take it or not, he is the only candidate in the Federal Republic that will be able to deliver his zone bloc votes intact. Remember when Buhari came to run under the APC arrangement, he was also having the advantage of delivering his zone.”

According to Doguwa, Tinubu has more than 8-10 million votes from the southwest alone and he gains more votes in the Northwest.

He expressed surprise that the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo did not withdraw from the race to support Tinubu, claiming that it was clear that the northern governors were behind Tinubu.

Doguwa said, “I’m surprised that the VP did not step down, I thought so because I have seen how governors from the northern part of the country agreed.

“Everybody knew even before the election, it was not only an agreement to allow the south to come up a presidential flag bearer, it was beyond that. The governors of the northern part of the country did not only agree to concede power to the south but also galvanized their support and solidarity behind Bola Ahmed Tinubu; it was not a secret. So I thought the VP, Osinbajo would have stepped down being someone that’s a kinsman.”