A founding member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Osita Okechukwu, on Thursday insisted that President Bola Tinubu laid the premium golden victory votes which made Muhammadu Buhari president in 2015.
Okechukwu was reacting to remarks by the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha that Tinubu did not contribute to Buhari’s victory.
Mustapha had said Buhari had 12 million votes which enabled him to defeat the then incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.
But in a reaction, Okechukwu recalled that in Buhari’s first election in 2003, their submission at the Presidential Election Tribunal was that he won majority votes not only the 12.7 million, which INEC allocated to him.
In a statement he issued, Okechukwu said it was on this “ground upon which Sylvester Nsofor JSC’s minority judgment rested on that slip numbering was jettisoned.”
He said, “May I hereby plead that there is no need for controversy because my friend Boss Mustapha should be excused as he was not with us in 2003 when Buhari began the presidential race.
“He was in ACN and did not know the water which passed the realpolitik bridge, this is why he relied only on mathematical calculations of votes in 2015 and not on realpolitik.
“Then in 2007 general elections one of the worst, Buhari was rigged out, which made the famous beneficiary, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to graciously admit that the election which brought him to power was flawed.
“In 2011, when our merger with Tinubu’s ACN failed, Buhari lost and we rekindled the ACN merger once again, luckily this time, it produced the premium golden victory votes that propelled our principal to Aso Rock.”
He said that President Tinubu’s premium golden votes was laid the day he unequivocally guaranteed Buhari that he was going to support him to be president with all his political structure.
Okechukwu recounted that when Tinubu was asked of his friendship with Atiku and Kwankwaso, he agreed and said that he had told them that Buhari is the man with a formidable 12 million vote-bank to support.
“I am witness of how this scenario played out when we the delegates of the defunct CPC were instructed to negotiate only with the ACN. And when we arrived at Chief Tom Ikimi’s Maitama house we refused to negotiate with ANPP and Co.
“It took pleadings and adjournments before we all sat together to hatch APC Merger in July 2013. The rest they say is history, truly without Asiwaju’s premium supplementary votes no 2/3 spread and no victory.” Okechukwu submitted.
