By Events surrounding the eventual choice of Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari in the buildup to the 2015 presidential polls have been explicated.
Former interim Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande has narrated how Buhari, the presidential candidate of the party at the time, reneged on his promise to pick the former Lagos governor as his running mate.
The ex-Osun governor revealed this in his autobiography, “My Participations”, published by Gaskia Media Limited, which was launched in Lagos, on Thursday.
In the book, Akande disclosed that despite the pledge to make Tinubu his vice presidential candidate, Buhari later faltered, owing to enormous pressure, especially from some northern governors who insisted that a Muslim-Muslim ticket arrangement was a no-go area.
The elder statesman also confirmed that Tinubu was instrumental to the emergence of Osinbajo as running mate to Buhari after he was formally dropped and asked to submit three names from the South-west from which Buhari would pick one.
He wrote: “We negotiated with Buhari in 2011 and gave him a name to choose instead of Pastor Bakare,’ I spoke to Tinubu on phone. ‘Who was that person?’ l asked.
‘It was Yemi Osinbajo,’ Tinubu declared. I asked Aregbesola to find out where Osinbajo was. He called him on the phone. ‘Yemi, where are you?
‘Don’t you know your case is coming up tomorrow?’ ‘l am in Abuja to argue your case.’ Osinbajo answered at the other end. ‘Which hotel are you staying?” Osinbajo told him.
“I got a blank sheet of paper and wrote Yemi Osinbajo on it. I instructed Amosun and Aregbesola to deliver that note to Buhari immediately.”
