Farouk Aliyu, an erstwhile ally of former President Muhammadu Buhari, has differed with ex-Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Boss Mustapha, regarding the role of President Bola Tinubu in Buhari’s 2015 election victory.
Aliyu made this statement on Thursday, when he appeared as a guest on ‘Politics Today’, a programme on Channels Television.
Dismissing Mustapha’s position as inaccurate, Aliyu stressed that while Buhari’s 12 million votes were consistent, they had never been enough to secure a presidential victory until the 2015 alliance with Tinubu.
He also alleged that some persons in the Buhari administration are trying to rewrite history despite not being present during the formative and decisive political struggles of the time.
“My senior brother, Boss Mustapha, certainly got it wrong because I can’t even remember where he was at that time.
“Unfortunately, there are many of these Buhari converts who were not with Buhari. I don’t want to mention names but most of them happened by accident or fate to become what they became, and they are now trying to deconstruct history. It is not true,” he stated.
The former Buhari’s ally further gave credit to Tinubu for playing a vital role in Buhari’s emergence both as the APC presidential candidate and eventual winner of the 2015 election.
He also recalled serving as the returning officer for Buhari during the APC primary in Lagos that led to Buhari’s emergence as the party’s standard bearer, and he highlighted the behind-the-scenes support that Tinubu provided during that process.
While rejecting claims that Buhari did not repay Tinubu’s support in the lead-up to the 2023 election, Aliyu argued that if Buhari wanted to sabotage the APC’s victory, he had several tools at his disposal to do so, but chose not to.
“If Muhammadu Buhari did not want APC to win the election, he would have done several things to ensure that they don’t win,” he affirmed.
DAILY POST reports that Mustapha, speaking during a book launch in Abuja on Wednesday, had stated that Tinubu did not make Buhari president.
Mustapha said the former president already had an established support base of 12 million votes, and the merger of legacy parties that formed the All Progressives Congress, APC, only added around three million more votes.
