2019 election: I have no plans to replace Osinbajo -Tinubu

Following report that the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu may be chosen by President Muhammadu Buhari as his running mate in 2019, he has stated that he has no plans to replace the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo.

He disclosed this in a statement by his media officer, Tunde Rahman, Tinubu said he and the people of the South-west “have absolute confidence and are exceedingly proud of the excellent job Professor Osinbajo is doing as Vice President of Nigeria”.

The report dated Wednesday, had claimed that the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, was considering returning to full church work and that Tinubu was being mooted as a replacement for him.

Tinubu, however, noted that there was no empirical or logical basis for the speculative story, adding that it was merely an attempt to distract the government from continuing its good work.

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The statement read in part: “There is no empirical or logical basis for this mischievously speculative story. Is it even conceivable, as the story recklessly insinuates, that Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would be considering returning to full church work rather than run with his boss, President Buhari for a second term if the latter so decides without as much as discussing such a sensitive issue with his party and with Asiwaju Tinubu? In any case, is this story not entirely unwarranted and indefensible as the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket has an electoral mandate of four years out of which it has spent only two and a half years?

“It is clearly an attempt to distract the APC Federal Government from the yeoman’s job it has been doing in rescuing the country from the deep-rooted socio-economic, political, security and moral mess inherited from the PDP’s 16 years misrule of Nigeria, instigate crisis within the party, stoke dangerous embers of religious disaffection within the party and the country generally and stem the remarkable progress being made in the reinvention and revitalization of Nigeria.

“The Buhari and Osinbajo-led Federal Government are deftly steering the country out of an economic recession that was the result of the ineptness of the PDP years of the locusts. Asiwaju Tinubu will never support any attempt to distract Buhari and Osinbajo from the job they are passionately doing through this kind of false report.

“In particular, this story does great injustice to Vice President Osinbajo. Here is a man of the highest integrity, moral rectitude, amazing humility, high intellect and unimpeachable credibility.

“Here is a man of fierce loyalty and absolute trustworthiness who will never do anything in the word, thought or deed to undermine his boss. His unquestionable dependability and indisputable fidelity to his oath of office were demonstrated beyond question by his honourable conduct during the President’s medical vacation.

“Asiwaju Tinubu and the people of the South West have absolute confidence and are exceedingly proud of the excellent job Professor Osinbajo is doing as Vice President of Nigeria,” he added.