2023 Presidency: Tinubu Will Make A Good Modern Nigerian President – Babachir Lawal

Published: October 19, 2019

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation who was sacked from office, Babachir Lawal, has said Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) possessed the qualities of a good modern president to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

Lawal stated this while speaking in an interview with some journalists in Yola, Adamawa State on Friday, October 18, 2019. He said:

“By 2023 when Buhari’s tenure will be over, he’ll go back to Daura to face his cows like I am doing. But you see, every leader must leave behind a legacy. I will like to see that he leaves behind a legacy of achievement.

“Bola Tinubu is my friend of many years. Buhari is my big boss. Bola Tinubu without prejudice that he’s my friend, will make a good president. Other issues notwithstanding, he (Tinubu) will make a good modern president because the presidency these days is scientific. Nigerians, by convention, seem to have agreed that there should be rotation of the presidency.”

Babachir, while speaking about the chances of the South-East to produce the President, faulted the notion that the north had been against a politician from the South-East emerging as the president of Nigeria.

He suggested that the Igbo people of South-East, instead, have been their own enemies by not uniting to ensure the emergence of a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction.

“They (Igbos) have not been working together to actualise an Igbo presidency,” he said.

Lawan said he could not see the South-East producing the president of Nigeria in 2023 because the region’s chances of getting the nominations of one of the major political parties might not be feasible “because politicians from the region had yet to reach an agreement”.

Meanwhile, the vice-presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi has lamented that the South East has not been treated fairly like every other region in Nigeria.

Peter Obi said South East has some of the best people capable of moving Nigeria away from economic challenges, but they’ve not been treated fairly by the country, especially owing to a flawed electoral process that would not allow capable people to emerge in the leadership of Nigeria.