Tinubu dismisses opposition to his same faith ticket as the handiwork of imposters like Dogara

ALL Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has dismissed the opposition to his same faith ticket by several prominent northern Christians as a minority viewpoint that does not represent the opinion of party members.

In June Asiwaju Tinubu emerged as the APC presidential candidate after coasting home in a landslide victory at the party's convention in Abuja. Following his victory, he laboured to select a running mate after publicly declaring that he will pick a Christian from the northeast geo-political zone as his deputy but the process appeared fraught with difficulty.

After much prevarication, in July, Asiwaju Tinubu, himself a Muslim, ended up selecting a fellow Muslim in former Borno State governor Senator Kashim Shettima. His choice has polarised the country as the Christian faithful feel highly marginalised and already, several senior party members have left the APC over the matter.

Leading the opposition to this same faith ticket have been several prominent northern Muslims like the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara and ex-secretary to the federal government Babachir Lawal. They have formed an organisation christened APC Northern Christians Leaders, that has held seminars and asked for Senator Shettima to stand down.

Dismissing their campaign, however, Asiwaju Tinubu, has described Hon Dogara and Mr Lawal as impostors. Reacting to reports of a meeting convened by Hon Dogara over the weekend with some Northern Muslim groups to adopt one of the opposition presidential candidates, Asiwaju Tinubu  said the former speaker was no longer an APC member, hence could not speak for anyone in the party.

Bayo Onanuga, the spokesman for the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, said: “Dogara has apparently lost his mind since he could not realise his self-imposed ambition to be on the presidential ticket of APC. The Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council is therefore not surprised by media reports about a meeting of some so-called northern Christian leaders, who claimed to be members of our All Progressives Congress that were championed by Dogara and his ilk.

“We want to assure Dogara and his co-travellers fanning a hate campaign against Tinubu and his running mate, that they will fail spectacularly at the polls. Tinubu and Shettima are going into this campaign with clear objectives to engage Nigerians across the socio-economic brackets on policy actions that will make their lives better.”