Bala Mohammed, governor of Bauchi, claims that if Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he would be given the presidential ticket in 2023.
Mohammed stated this on Sunday during an appearance on Arise TV’s ThisDay Live.
On Saturday, Mohammed was among those invited to an iftar hosted by Aisha, President Muhammadu Buhari’s wife, for presidential candidates.
Speaking on the show, Mohammed stated that he met Tinubu, among other renowned Nigerians, and that the former Lagos governor would be granted the presidential ticket if he was in the PDP due of his contributions.
Supporters of Tinubu have been calling on the APC to hand him the presidential ticket because he “worked hard” in getting Buhari into office.
According to the governor, he attended the iftar to prove that he is a product of consensus.
“I knew it was an opportunity to meet other eminent Nigerians who are stepping out to present themselves,” he said.
“And I was lucky I met Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, we discussed, he was calling me consensus and I told him that: ‘if you were in PDP we would have just given you the ticket because we knew that without you Buhari wouldn’t have been a president’ and so in PDP we recognise contributions.
“We have some people in Nigeria that we must recognise and it was definitely a good outing for me yesterday. The First Lady is a unifier. She has shown that she is a mother of the nation and all the presidential aspirants not only in PDP, APC but all the other parties were there. It was an opportunity to show that I’m really a product of consensus or closing rank irrespective of party differences.”
Last Friday, Saraki and Mohammed were announced as “northern consensus candidates” of the PDP following a report released by Ango Abdullahi, elder statesman.
But Tambuwal and other stakeholders rejected the report, saying it was not the agreement reached at a previous meeting of PDP presidential hopefuls.