Buba Galadima–How Buhari agreed to support Tinubu for president in 2023
A Former Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s former allies, Alhaji Buba Galadima, has said that the Nigerian leader and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had an agreement before the 2015 general elections.
According to Galadima, during a closed-door meeting specifically in 2013, there was a deal that if Tinubu secures the presidency for Buhari through his massive support, the same will be done for him when the president’s tenure expires.
The former associate of the president in an interview with Punch claimed this resolution was reached when the option of Tinubu being a vice president in 2015 failed on the consideration that a Muslim-Muslim ticket would have been rejected.
However, Galadima said that just as he warned at the time, things are not going according to the plan which is why, according to him, Tinubu is bitter.
He said: “They said that whatever he does, he should deploy and make sure that Buhari becomes President and that when he (Buhari) is going, he would also do whatever he would in his powers to assist Tinubu to become President.
”It looks like they are now going back on that understanding, and a promise is a promise whether written or unwritten because if you can subvert it, God knows your heart. And God never accepts betrayal. When you are committed, whether it is sour or bitter, or tasty, you have to swallow it.
“Now, it looks like they want to go back on that understanding with Tinubu. This is why Tinubu is bitter and I understand this bitterness, because of what has happened to him, which I told him years back.
”I told him what was going to happen to him, and everything that I predicted those years is now happening. My prayer for him (Tinubu) is that he should come out of this unscathed and healthy. That is my biggest prayer for him.
”But for him, it looks like he has already been subverted. The only way he can get his momentum is if the party agrees to do primaries. If the party agrees to go to the primaries, I have no doubt in my mind that Tinubu may emerge victorious, but as far as the consensus which they want to adopt is concerned, he is out of the game.
When asked who was present when Buhari and Tinubu reached the agreement, Galadima said ”I won’t tell you but the people involved know. Tinubu came to the meeting with a former governor while Buhari came with a sitting governor. That is why that governor is solidly behind Tinubu today and because of the fear of God. But I wouldn’t want to mention the names of the two of them, because, Tinubu himself has alluded to this kind of understanding.”
