Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has urged Nigerians to wait till January 2022 for the National Leader of All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, to declare whether he will be running for president in 2023 or not.

He stated this on Channels Television’s ‘Hard Copy’ programme aired on Friday night which was monitored by The PUNCH.

Of recent, posters and billboards advertising the rumoured presidential bid of Tinubu who was Lagos governor from May 1999 to May 2007 have been seen in major cities including Lagos and Abuja.

Though Tinubu has yet to declare his intention to contest any office in 2023, there have been reports and veiled indications that he might be interested in the exalted seat.

The PUNCH had earlier reported that the SouthWest Agenda 2023, a political movement mobilising support for Tinubu to contest the 2023 presidential election, was inaugurated in Lagos in October by Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and other party chieftains.

Tinubu, who celebrated his 69th birthday in March 2021 and command an arguably large following of political loyalists, has been reported to nurse presidential ambition in 2023, even as political debates get intense for a Southern President after the eight-year regime of the incumbent, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who is from Katsina State, North-West Nigeria.

Some groups and persons have also said aside from Tinubu, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo; Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi; and Fashola are equally capable to be Nigeria’s President.

When asked whether he is interested in becoming the President of Nigeria, Fashola said, “It is a very tough responsibility, a very tough job; I don’t envy those who have held that office and I don’t envy those who aspire to take it as well.”

Asked whether he is speaking for any aspirant come 2023, the minister said, “As far as I am aware, nobody has said, ‘I want to be Nigeria’s President’. There are people speaking for people. Nobody has come out, we are not at that stage yet.

“I can venture out and say that I will speak for X or Y. Let the person come out and say, ‘I want to serve Nigeria’.

“It pains me sometimes when we see that very important job and responsibility to, ‘My people said’. I think the whole sense of it should be that I am able, I have look at myself, give me your problem, you go to sleep’.”

On whether he will support Tinubu’s rumoured 2023 presidential bid, the two-term ex-governor of Lagos said, “I saw him last week, he didn’t tell me he is running for office and to the best of my knowledge the last statement he made on it is that people will know in January.”

Fashola also said he has not asked Tinubu whether he is interested in the 2023 President or not. “No, I didn’t ask him, I just went to ask how was doing. He has issued a statement that, ‘I will speak in January, so let us wait till January,” he said.

YorubaNiBaba:
ndi wailers and how they reason, e be like say brain no dey common for that place, what a shame
Shukudi e be like say you no know wetin dey xup, 100million ndi wailers can't stop tinubu or any yoruba man from becoming president come 2023
Wetin you know how to do best is wailing and nothing more, just know that come 2023 your wailing will enter a new level.

Sonyboom765:
Anyone with a functional brain will know that Tinubu can not contest n lose as woefully as Maduka. No let hate wey you Igbo mama nurtured you with from birth ruin what is left of your miserable wretched life

Sonyboom765:
Anyone with a functional brain will know that Tinubu can not contest n lose as woefully as Maduka. No let hate wey you Igbo mama nurtured you with from birth ruin what is left of your miserable wretched life.

Sonyboom765:
Anyone with a functional brain will know that Tinubu can not contest n lose as woefully as Maduka. No let hate wey you Igbo mama nurtured you with from birth ruin what is left of your miserable wretched life

Moferere:
Where is igbo candidate

PlayMaker14:
The fate that befall Godwin Maduka at the Anambra Gubers will befall Bobo Chicago....


Regardless, Tinubu for President 2023.

AmbaliJ:


Atiku is the igbo candidate, but the cowardly werey dey disguise for now. Dem no wan loud am yet. So instead dem wan demarket the one possible candidate wey fit send dem on another 8-years of wailing and gnashing of teeth. But they're showing their hands early because they're just making Tinubu more popular, sotay his candidacy is becoming more or less inevitable, while their Atiku may not even get PDP's ticket. Their strategy dey backfire.

hollah123:
says an inconsequential nonentity 5%

Someone ridicule your whole tribe n still got elected for 2nd tenure,that's a pointer that u are nobody.

Jonathan marginalised d yorubas n he was defeated,that's to show u who matters in d scheme of things