A chieftain of the APC in Kebbi, Salihu Isa Nataro, has disclosed that patriotic and fair-minded northerners are in favour of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo becoming the party’s presidential candidate, adding that the search for a suitable running mate has begun in earnest in the North.
Nataro expressed hope that Osinbajo would eventually become the next president of the country, adding that as a partisan and a knowledgeable APC insider, he knows that the challenge to the North is to find a loyal and dutiful running mate to the current VP.
“This development is hardly surprising. Osinbajo simply has no problem, as Nigerians would key into his usual jocularity,” he told The Guardian. “The man has nearly all what it takes to make a very good president for Nigeria. He is humble, almost self-effacing, a team player, a loyal follower of his principal and above all, very intelligent and self-controlled.
“Beyond this, he is not loud at all, which is very unlike most politicians in Nigeria and elsewhere in the tempestuous democratic world. He is simply just the type of man that can heal the high political temperature in the country right now in which a stranger to Nigeria may feel that the country will break up the next day.
“Even in the fold of the man popularly known as the National Leader of the APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, from whence he came to national limelight, who used to think that it will be both a betrayal and an embarrassment if Osinbajo puts himself forward, or some other group pushes him forward for the coveted seat, there is a softening of position in favour of Osinbajo.”
Nataro, a former governorship aspirant, added: “If, as it seems likely, Osinbajo emerges as the APC candidate, who then from the North, is going to partner him as running mate? There is a surfeit of choices, like the current Borno Governor Babagana Zulum and FCT Minister Muhammed Bello, who are already being screened,” he stated.
Guardian
