frontline leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at the weekend confessed he betrayed his own candidate for President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 presidential contest.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu
In that contest, Mr. Jonathan was in competition with General Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Political Change, but also with Nuhu Ribadu, the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, who was the flagbearer of Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
Curiously, while the candidates of the ACN did very well in the legislative and gubernatorial elections, Ribadu was trounced in all but one of the ACN States by Mr. Jonathan. Observers have always suspected that Tinubu, who was known to have flown to Abuja to meet with the president just before the election, was bought off to give victory to Jonathan in the area.
Speaking at Onikan Stadium during an Ndigbo APC governorship rally on Saturday, Tinubu appeared to confirm those suspicions.
"In 2011, I helped Jonathan become President because he made us believe he was a breath of fresh air,” the APC boss said. “I didn't say because he was from Bayelsa that I would not help him. We voted for him because he promised to make our lives better. But now, he has failed us."
In the speech, Tinubu appeared to have forgotten he did not belong to Jonathan’s Peoples Democratic Party in 2011, and that he had a candidate in the race that was not told ACN was voting for Jonathan. Ribadu campaigned on the ACN platform until the end.
On Saturday, Tinubu urged the Igbo in Lagos not to permit the politics of tribe and religion to influence their vote, and that they should support the APC so as to continue to reap the dividends of democracy.
"Igbo have lived here for years, and nobody has discriminated against them,” he said. “No one would fight them because they are based in their land. No one can determine the tribe or family where he is born; it is only God that can do
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