Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has picked the nomination and expression of interest forms to run for president on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The forms were procured for the vice president for N100 million on Thursday in Abuja by a former governor of Kano State and serving senator, Kabiru Gaya.
Mr Osinbajo was away in Cross River State to meet with APC faithful when the form was picked on his behalf.
The vice president had declared his interest in the 2023 presidential race on April 11.
He said among other things that the seven years he has spent as the nation’s number two citizen has positioned him more than anyone else to succeed his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari.
Also on Thursday, a former Senate President, Ken Nnamani, also bought the APC presidential nomination and expression of interest forms.
Mr Nnamani, who presided over the upper legislative chamber between 2005 and 2007, had indicated his intention last week to run for the nation’s highest political office.
While declaring in Abuja, the former lawmaker from Enugu State decried the high cost of the forms.
He asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to intervene.
Tunde Bakare, the founder of Citadel Global Community Church (formerly Latter Rain Assembly) also procured the presidential forms of the ruling APC.
The outspoken cleric picked the forms few weeks after he indicated his plan to join the overcrowded presidential race.
Mr Bakare was Mr Buhari’s running mate during the 2011 presidential election under the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).
Mr Bakare joins several other presidential aspirants in the APC, which is fast becoming an all-comers affair, as many have procured the forms despite the outrageous price tag.
PREMIUM TIMES had reported how Mr Bakare had in a video that went viral in 2020, said he will be the one to succeed Mr Buhari.
“Take it to the mountain top, if you have never heard it before, I am saying it to you this morning in the scheme of things, as far as politics of Nigeria is concerned, President Muhammadu Buhari is number 15, and I am number 16,
“If he (Buhari) wants to run in 2019, I do not oppose. He’s still number 15. It’s when he steps out that I step in”, he said.
He went further to compare himself and Mr Buhari to the bibilical figures—Moses and Joshua.
“His assignment is like that of Moses to take Nigeria to River Jordan, but he can’t cross it; it will take a Joshua to go to the other side and begin to distribute resources to the people of this nation,” he had said.
Last year, Mr Bakare even urged the president to nominate a successor to succeed him, prompting a response from Femi Adesina, Mr Buhari’s spokesperson, that the “The president will not pick a successor.”
Mr Adesina added, “We know him (Buhari), he is not somebody like that. Will he be interested in the process? Yes, he will. He will ensure that there is a free, fair and credible election; that nobody will come to use money and resources to bamboozle his way into the leadership of the country.”
Mr Bakare, despite his relationship with Mr Buhari, had on several occasions criticised the current administration.
Flurry of aspirants
Apart from the trio of Osinbajo, Nnamdi and Bakare, other presidential aspirants on the platform of the party include former Lagos State governor, Bola Tinubu and Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, State Minister for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, Labour and Employment Minister, Chris Ngige, former Imo governor, Rochas Okorocha, Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State and former Abia governor and serving senator, Orji Uzor Kalu.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River, former Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, and Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State and Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa State are also in the race.
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