2023: Power brokers rule out Tinubu, Osinbajo, Fashola

The speculated 2023 presidential ambition of the National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is doomed to fail if information coming out from the country’s seat of power, the Aso Presidential Villa, Abuja, is anything to go by.

A competent source close to the Villa who recently spoke with News Express dismissed the venture with a wave of the hand, disclosing that power brokers at the seat of power have completely ruled it out.

“Forget it; Tinubu cannot be President in 2023,” the source said confidently. He said that two major factors are against the former Lagos State Governor: His being a Muslim (as President Muhammadu Buhari would not likely hand over to a fellow Muslim after eight years in office) and the fact that “the outcome of the 2019 elections has diminished him.”

The source also dismissed any possibility of the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, succeeding Buhari, adding, however, that he would be allowed to complete his tenure as VP despite his present travails. “The South-West leaders think he is a liability and some leaders in the North think that he is not large-hearted enough,” the source said of Osinbajo.

He equally ruled out Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, from the race, saying curtly: “He’s a Muslim. PMB will not likely hand over to a Muslim.”

The source narrowed the 2013 presidential candidacy of APC to a dark horse.