I’m not ready to work for PDP -Tinubu



The president was said to have invited you to Abuja for a deal. How was it sir?

It was not true that he sought for me in Abuja. He sought for my audience in Lagos and as a president, and someone I know when he was the deputy governor. But I know when late Yar’adua, my friend of blessed memory was the president, I have to respect him. We met and that was the second time. We met first during the period when he became president. When we met in Lagos, I told him clearly that I have been in this position years back, during the military era, even when Babangida took me as a baby junior brother and he was very close to my family. He attended my mother’s 75th birthday. Even with that I did not change my position about him vacating the house. You knew as a Treasurer for Mobil I was on leave of absence to contest election, and at that time when the process was aborted I had an option to go back to Mobil or stay with the struggle. I chose to stay with the people and struggle for democracy.

I did not compromise. I did not look at the comfort of opportunity. My commitment to democracy depends on the principle of nation building and is very firm .The fact that PDP had spent 12 years and I have 101 reasons that I will not be part of any PDP arrangement. Mr President is a good man. I respect him but I am not going to work for PDP. I have a party that I am leading and I am not looking for anything. I laugh when I read that I took a presidential jet to Abuja. That is stupid and a bunch of lies. I have a company chartered jet which I used during the campaign, so I don’t need the presidential jet.

I have been in the presidential jet not more than three times since the beginning of this democracy. Twice with Atiku Abubakar to Umurah and Yar’adua was with us and when Yar’adua was alive. We met in Katsina and we flew back to Abuja together. Since Jonathan’s tenure began, I have never seen the inside of the presidential jet. They should give me the number on the manifest and prove it. This is blackmail. We need to live with the truth because there are lots of misleading stories.


Buhari on the Voice of America said ACN has sealed a deal with PDP for some cabinet post and for the Speaker’s post. This is meant to be a government of National Unity?

This is absolutely false. If it is true that he said so, that is blackmail and I don’t expect somebody of his caliber to be going that way. We are democrats, committed to our manifesto and principle. If Jonathan will invite the leadership of ACN to even have a discussion, to even ask for collaboration and cooperation, he has done well. He has shown a desire and zeal to win. What has Buhari done? Has he willingly contacted the leadership of the ACN privately, before we were rallied by the leaders who got us together? He did not get in touch with any one of us and I believe a man who is running for the president of Nigeria, should have such flexibility that will help cement the unity and that is part of leadership that is needed to be demonstrated. It is all about an idea, common ideas. In fact, Ribadu was even willing when we asked him to make the sacrifice to step down. He was willing sincerely, but Buhari remained unbendable. I have been in this struggle for over 20 years.

This democracy we are trying to promote and sustain today was the product of our struggle as NADECO. I did not take advantage when Obasanjo was there, or are you going to say he did not invite me? He invited me several times but I turned him down and that was why I was able to keep Lagos. What has the PDP got to offer?


Obasanjo told his people that the election is no longer a laughing matter. You still dey laugh?

Yes, I still dey laugh o.

seanet02:

All hail the most Sensible and Progressive Politician in Nigeria!! Tinubu for life

What will you say of the failed alliance between the CPC and the ACN?



To me, the story is clear from what the national chairman of the party has said and it is very very unfortunate that the two serious national parties could not sort the problem out earlier than when it started. We had been at it for quite some time and you all are aware of the process in the National Democratic Movement from which former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, at the initial stage was a member, and he moved back to the PDP. That was when it was left for Bafarawa, Buhari and us.

From that moment on, it would have been a good opportunity to even vouch for the alliance. It is not about individuals but about three structures trying to get together. Then, there was no CPC but TBO, which is the Buhari organization. Suddenly, they got their registration as CPC. To me, at that stage, instead of merging to form one uniform group, they started talking about an alliance. Alliance in a presidential situation, I mean in federal system, is going to be very difficult. You need to form a common platform, a common manifesto to really work together and be able to educate the people and show the difference between the other parties. When that did not work, they dragged us back.

T[b]oday, I will not trade blames. But Buhari as a leader who is highly experienced and having been a statesman and contested elections twice, has complained of rigging and experienced other irregularities and has been in court for a very long time challenging the process, should have known that it is not wise to bring CPC in at the time we were holding talks on a merger in the first place. But we still respected him and we said let us go ahead with the merger.

But they said they only want an alliance. We worked on the merger process to the extent that it was suspended. In between the process, if you want to match, you must have some concessions, you must give and take, look at the objectives and make sacrifices. It is just unfortunate that Nigerians were so self-centred and selfish that no one applied patriotic sense to sacrifice for the country. That is when we had a problem.[/b] We suspended the alliance to the National Assembly elections, to see if we could see the performance, and when we resumed after the National Assembly elections, that demonstrated and it showed clearly the strength of ACN. When you look at that across the country, we have a better spread and a better result and the cumulative amount of votes that we garnered put us in a superior position between CPC and ACN. So we should be the leader and we got to the table. The group demanded for the president’s position, having knowledge that the period for substitution was over, according to the electoral Act.

They wanted to keep the presidential candidate, as well as running mate where we should be the leading pack. And that they will keep their platform, CPC. So what is there to be negotiated again? That is a much more critical issue, but we still looked into it for the long term, and for the long interest of the country. We discovered that during the time we were making discussions on the merger, they had entered into agreement with the Save Nigeria Group (SNG) and conceded the vice presidential slot to them.

[b]We said okay, let us all defer all these. Let us first look at our own demands. Buhari, you are a senior man, you are in the Council of state already. You can offer good advice for the remaining part of your life for this country to recover. Nigeria’s democracy needs a hero.

You should look at our candidate as younger, compared to all other candidates. You look at the performance of other young men across the world, even overly conservative Russia, is shifting ground for the younger generation. You know Ribadu, you know his records. He is a brilliant lawyer, an institutional person. He built EFCC from the scratch and if you build an institution and it is still sustaining and functions as a deterrent to irregularity and corruption. When he was there, you were one of the principal advisers and admirers. They even have a long history. Why not become our hero and our own Mandela and raise his hands up. More so that age is on your side and share the positions of government thereafter. You have Fola Adeola who had built an institution, a bank, a great bank and an accountant.

GTB is one of the largest banks in the country today. So you have the two who can do the Nigeria good, please sir support them. He said no. We even bent backwards and said okay we accept your offer but surrender the vice president’s position to ACN, because our platform will be in danger if we elect both of you, and once you assume power our own platform which is ACN will be in danger, and we worked so hard and said no. We even made suggestions that we will not split the ticket now, that we will go on CPC’s ticket but give us the assurance even if you are not contesting on our platform, but since we wanted to protect our platform and we don’t want to surrender that platform, we will allow you to use the CPC platform because that is the candidate. Please, give us the opportunity that after swearing-in, you will incorporate our platform by surrendering the position of the vice president .That is where we stopped and we continued from there. We set up a merger committee to merge the two parties to become one. We cannot afford to change our symbol which is the broom because it is the symbol of economy to our people. We are ready to even hold the broom on one side and his pen on the other side, and set a new logo for the future. We went to that extent.[/b]

Still, no commitment, no paper written, nothing. We could not get anything in writing. Then we told ourselves, what we are looking for. When you look at the results, you have no alternative to offer, National Assembly is over, none of the member of our parties will become senate president when you look at the number, and you have no House of Representatives to offer. So, we just take shrubs in the cabinet and then when you change your cabinet tomorrow then you can fire and replace, and our platform will become a struggling one. So we could not take it. The national chairman and the entire party leadership rejected the idea and that was it. So, we say may be, a very strong one for that matter, the presidential election will throw-in a re-run if no clear winner emerges. Maybe we will talk again. But I heard him making allegations that I was inflexible, and that the party is inflexible in their position, and that is not good for politics.