Abdulazeez Yinka-Oniyangi, North Central Coordinator of Tinubu Campaign Organisation has said numbers will be the major consideration in picking a running mate of the All Progressives Congress presidential flag bearer, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Yinka-Oniyangi disclosed this while speaking about the rationale behind the choice of a running mate for Tinubu on the Trust Tv programme, Daily Politics, on Friday night.
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Tinubu had named Kabiru Ibrahim Masari as his running mate for the 2023 presidential election he is believed to be a place holder pending when a substantive vice presidential candidate will emerge.
Parties have until July 15 to substitute the names of their vice presidential candidates.
Yinka-Oniyangi, while reacting to a possible Muslim-Muslim APC presidential ticket, said, “I am not sure that is a problem for the party, to be honest with you.
“Whether you like it or not, he [Tinubu] knows the game. Because we are the two major parties, it’s about numbers.
“Tinubu is in a minority Muslim sector. It just makes sense that if you are going to have more votes, it’s about the numbers. It’s winning thing. More so, these two, Atiku and Tinubu, are veterans.
“It just makes logic to look at it very critically. The bulk of votes in Nigeria comes from the northern part of the country. Tinubu is a minority Muslim, what are you going to do? What makes sense to do at that particular point in time?
“So, for us, it’s about numbers and you have to be very strategic, you have to be sure about what you want to do.
“It’s not going to be a child’s play. We are not talking about somebody you are going to walk over in this game, we are talking about people who are also experienced. So, for me, it’s going to be about numbers and it goes beyond the running mate.”
‘We are not unserious’
He dismissed the insinuation that the choice of a placeholder was a sign of unseriousness on the part of the ruling party having failed to come up with a substantive vice presidential candidate more than a week after the presidential primary.
He said, “Our party is a very large party, there are so many factors you need to consider and for me, that has nothing to do with seriousness or unseriousness. We still have enough time for that [to choose a running mate for Tinubu].
“If there was no time and we were running helter-skelter, that would have been it but consultation had to be made, everybody has to be carried along, you have to make a very strong strategic decision because in a complex country like Nigeria and if you really mean business, you don’t just rush to do things.
“You take your time, you weigh all factors together before you can arrive at a possible decision that everybody can be carried along.”
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