People trying to set me against Buhari –Tinubu

By Eniola Akinkuotu

The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has raised the alarm over a plot by some people to pit him against President Muhammadu Buhari.

Tinubu said this in a statement by his media office while responding to a report by an online medium.

The medium had claimed that Tinubu accused Buhari of moving against the party by helping Senator Bukola Saraki to emerge as Senate President.

However, Tinubu said he had never made a public statement about the National Assembly since Saraki and Yakubu Dogara emerged as Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives respectively.

The former governor of Lagos State said he could never insult the President or castigate a government that he helped to form.

The statement read, “The story first published on an online news site and later parroted by other online news outlet is an example of irresponsible journalism. This story has no source. It is a blatant fabrication to serve the interest of its sponsors. Tinubu has not spoken about the Senate election. This story is a perverse fiction. Not journalism.

“He has never said these lies so wrongly attributed to him. There is no chance he will ever utter such words against President Buhari, a man he worked very hard for to become President, along with millions of Nigerians who voted. Tinubu would not accuse the President of plotting his own injury. If anything, he is alarmed by how this may impair the government’s substantive reform agenda.

“It is a mischievous attempt to drive a wedge between Tinubu and Buhari. There is no need to try to put words in Tinubu’s mouth. He will talk when and if it is necessary. His major preoccupation now is how Nigerians can support President Buhari and his administration to achieve the reform and change promised during the election.”

Tinubu’s media aide, Mr. Sunday Dare, also denied reports that Saraki visited Tinubu in Lagos recently.

Dare said Tinubu had been in France since last week and was going to London before returning to Nigeria. He, therefore, stated that it was impossible for Tinubu to be in two places at once.

He said, “The story about Senator Saraki visiting Bola Tinubu at his home in Lagos is a total fabrication. It’s a lie. During the time alleged in the story, Asiwaju Tinubu was overseas in France to condole a family friend. Thus it’s physically impossible for Tinubu to have received anybody at his home in Lagos.”

In a separate statement, a group, the Patriotic Northern Coalition for Justice, Peace and Equity has advised the APC to be wary of some politicians within the party plotting to undermine and marginalise Tinubu.

The national coordinator of the coalition, Alhaji Babangida Sule, said Tinubu remains the leader of the party and a force to reckon with in the South-West.

Sule warned that any attempt to marginalise Tinubu could destroy the party.

He said, “Politicians are already strategising for 2019 and they will stop at nothing to achieve their aim. Some of them are in the APC and we have discovered that part of their aims is to undermine the party’s chieftain, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, because they see him as a stumbling block.

“But we the Patriotic Northern Coalition won’t allow them because we are still grateful to Tinubu for what he did for the North in the 2015 general election.”

Culled from The Punch newspaper