Bayo Onanuga, a former Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria and the present Director of Media of the campaign train of All Progressives Congress presidential aspirant, Bola Tinubu, speaks with KAYODE OYERO on the 2023 general elections and some allegations made against the ex-governor of Lagos State by Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, Bode George
With just a few days to the All Progressives Congress presidential primary, how would you rate the acceptability rate of Tinubu?
He has a very high acceptability rate. Tinubu has between 70 to 75 per cent (acceptability) rate. The APC appears to be crowded but he is the most popular among all the aspirants on the field right now. In my estimation, he is miles ahead of them; he is the most recognisable and he is known in all the regions. He doesn’t even need an introduction in any place. His record as the governor of Lagos speaks for him.
Was any poll conducted to ascertain the ‘75 per cent popularity’ rate you alluded to?
From the feelers we are getting from the state and the pledges we are getting from the delegates, that is what gives us a lot of confidence to say that this man (Tinubu) is way ahead of the others.
The chances are very high. I don’t want to reveal a lot of things about our projections, so other aspirants won’t know the states we have checked off but I can tell you that we have many states checked off and others know that going to those states means a waste of time. We know from all our estimates that in the North-West, for instance, Tinubu will beat other aspirants. The same is for the South-West, which is his base. Even in the North Central and the North-East.
How’s Tinubu handling pressure from the northern aspirants?
In politics, 24 hours is a long time and anything can happen. Never say somebody cannot pull out in the last minute. People who are in the race now are already calling it quit. Even on the convention ground, people will pull out when they realise that they cannot get votes outside their states of origin. We are projecting that some of them will fall out and Mr Tinubu will get their votes. For him, there is no problem with (Senate President Ahmad) Lawan coming out in Yobe. Lawan will get votes while Tinubu will get votes as well.
Is Tinubu threatened in anyway?
Not at all. He came out in January and even before he came out, we saw the massive campaign in his favour from the time (President Muhammadu) Buhari began his second term. People had been working for him and selling him all over the country. So many groups had been selling his candidacy while others just started. If a man has been so long in the field, he cannot be defeated so easily. This is why we are so confident that Tinubu will win on the 31st of May on the convention ground.
Tinubu is not in any way afraid of them. How can a leader be afraid of people he has led for many years? Osinbajo and Tinubu will still be in the same camp after this convention is done. This is a game of politics. Osinbajo wants to try his luck; he will know his fate on May 31 whether he can beat a man who is a political strategist and a tactician far ahead of him. Nigeria needs a visionary at this time, someone who thinks out of the box to proffer solutions.
There are at least five presidential aspirants from the South-West. Is Tinubu afraid of these aspirants?
Let us first take out (Pastor Tunde) Bakare. Is Bakare really a politician? He is not really a politician; he is a pastor who is playing politics. I don’t know how you want to situate him. Where is he going to get delegates from? Bakare is not an issue at all. As for (Vice President Yemi) Osinbajo, his best hope is from Ogun State where he comes from but I can tell you he cannot carry Ogun State 100 per cent. Our candidate (Tinubu) will shock him and get substantial votes from that place. I am from Ogun State and I know what people are saying. Lagos is locked down. Osun is locked down. Maybe they will split the votes in Oyo. We are heading in Ondo. (Senator Ibikunle) Amosun is from Ogun State and I don’t know where he wants to get his votes from because as far as I know the governor of the state (Dapo Abiodun) is working for Osinbajo. He (Abiodun) has the party structure in his hands and he is promising to deliver the party delegates to Osinbajo. I don’t know where he wants to get his delegates from. Maybe he is depending on the statutory delegates he had when he was governor.
So, you can see that in the South-West, for instance, Mr Tinubu is unrivaled, he will get the majority of the votes in the zone. And if you go to the South-South, in the area of (Minister of Transportation, Rotimi) Amaechi, we are also working there to get all that we need for this election. Same for the South-East. We are confident that we will emerge as the leading candidate in the entire southern region of Nigeria.
What are the chances of your aspirant in the North?
He has very bright chances based on history, based on what he has done in his relationship with people in the three zones in the North. I can say categorically that his chances in the three zones there are very high.
Are you worried that the gale of defections from the APC to the New Nigeria People’s Party in Kano State might affect Tinubu at the presidential primary?
Don’t forget that (former Kano State governor, Rabi’u) Kwankwaso, left the APC a long time ago. Senator (Ibrahim) Shekarau left a few days ago. (Former lawmaker, Abdulmumin) Jibrin also left a few days ago. These are just one vote each. (Abdullahi) Ganduje still has control of the APC delegates in the state. As far as I am concerned, Governor Ganduje is one of the greatest allies of Tinubu and we expect him to play a pivotal role at the convention.
How did Tinubu’s campaign team receive the defection of Abdulmumin Jibrin, former member of the House of Representatives and a lead promoter for Tinubu?
Tinubu has multiple support groups; Jibrin headed the BAT Support Group. He is out of it now and another director general has taken over. We haven’t lost anything. Jibrin is just one vote in Kano and he said his defection is not in any way connected to Tinubu but local politics. He went to take care of his own interests to return to the House of Representatives. Jibrin still has a good relationship with Bola Tinubu. Even the people in NNPP like Kwankwaso still have good relationship with Bola Tinubu.
Is Tinubu worried that some of his loyalists and political followers, including Osinbajo; Abiodun; Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi; and Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, seem to have abandoned him to pursue their different interests?
We are not losing sleep that some people are not with him (Tinubu). How many are they? They are just four persons that you have mentioned. We all saw the reaction Aregbesola got when he left Tinubu’s camp in Osun State. So, will others get; they will be shocked when they get to the convention ground. The delegates will make their decisions on the convention ground. Tinubu has not lost sleep that they are not with him; they have the right to do so.
Won’t the number of aspirants from the South-West divide the number of votes from delegates?
Not substantially, it won’t affect Tinubu. Their presence on the ballot will not substantially affect Tinubu.
There have been permutations on who will become the anointed aspirant of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). What will Tinubu do if it turns out that he is not Buhari’s preferred aspirant?
Buhari so far has not taken any position and we believe that he will allow the primary to hold without interference. He (Buhari) once said at an interview that he has a candidate in his mind but he never told the world who the person is but people are trying to read his body language to know his preferred person. Buhari is a soldier, he will never show who is candidate is but I know he will allow the primary to go ahead without interference. We believe he will do that. Tinubu has been Buhari’s ally and we don’t expect him to work against Bola Tinubu, without whom he wouldn’t have been President in 2015. We don’t expect Buhari to pay back Tinubu with a bad coin because the South-West was very pivotal to Buhari’s winning in 2015. Buhari upsetting a sitting President in 2015. So, he knows what role Tinubu played. The decision is left to delegates to pick Buhari’s successor.
There are moves for a consensus presidential candidate within the APC. Is Tinubu willing to submit to the consensus arrangement if Buhari insists on that?
We are going for delegates’ election and they will choose their representative. You can only get a consensus candidate based on the popularity of that candidate. If they want to do consensus, it must be Bola Tinubu.
Will Tinubu defect to another party if he doesn’t emerge the APC presidential candidate?
Has he ever defected? He has never defected. He is one man that has stayed in one political party and never changed position. He transformed the AD (Action for Democracy) to the AC (Action Congress) and to the CAN (Action Congress of Nigeria) and later teamed up with another party to form the APC (All Progressives Congress). He has been in the same party since 1999 and hasn’t left his political structure. He is not a man who jumps from one party to the other.
There are rumours that Tinubu may join the Social Democratic Party should he fail to clinch the APC ticket. How do you react to this?
Don’t believe the rumours. He (Tinubu) has no structures there and if we lose in a free and fair election, he will come back to Lagos.
Over the years, PDP chieftain in Lagos, Chief Bode George, has been making some allegations against Tinubu. How do react to this?
Bode George has never been a lover of Bola Tinubu; he has always been his hater for reasons best known to him. Whatever he says should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Bode George alleged that Jimi Agbaje was planted in the PDP by Tinubu to work for APC, ascribing the 22-year loss of the PDP to Agbaje’s presence. How do you react to this?
Why is Bode George ascribing superpower status to Bola Tinubu? Is Agbaje a puppet that will be sent to the PDP and they will not know that he is from Bola Tinubu and they followed him and made him their (governorship) candidate twice? Bode George’s problem with Tinubu started since 1999. He has never won any election, not even his polling booth. So, he is angry that this guy is beating him all the time. In fact, he should be ashamed that he called himself a chieftain of PDP and he hasn’t been able to deliver anything to the PDP. Anything he says is from the point of view of being a Tinubu hater. It is obviously that Bode George is not just a failure but he has been rejected by the people of Lagos State. He sees Tinubu as a man who has not allowed him to achieve his old political ambition in the state. PDP cannot win a quarter of Lagos State.
Bode George said Tinubu should be in jail for allegedly turning Lagos to his private company. How do you respond to that?
Look at that! Because he (Bode George) went to jail for stealing money at the Nigerian Ports Authority so Tinubu too should go to jail? The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission have probed Tinubu before and they found nothing. Before you can say a man should be in jail, it must be proved in the law court and not in your own Kangaroo court. Tinubu has not committed a crime and the court of law has never convicted him. All those things they are throwing around have not been proven. And I believe that our country is anchored on the rule of law and a man can only be in jail when a court has convicted him like Bode George.
My magazine wrote the story that landed Bode George in jail and that is the reason that Bode George said if he sees me, he will shoot me. So, I always avoid him; I don’t want to be in his firing range because he is a retired soldier and maybe he carries a pistol around. Grand corruption happened at the Nigerian Ports Authority when Bode George was the chairman. They stole so much money and impoverished Nigeria. So, we exposed what was going on there and the EFCC moved him and took him to court; his record is there.
Bode George also said anti-graft agencies should go after Tinubu over the alleged presence of bullion vans in his Bourdillon residence during the 2019 elections. What’s your view on this?
Did he know what was inside the bullion vans? Was he there? Did he know where the bullion vans were coming from? In 2019 that Bode George was talking about, Tinubu was not in government. He was just a politician.
What was inside the bullion vans?
All these people talking about bullion vans, did they know the content of the bullion vans? They were not even there; they saw a bullion van entering. Did they know whether the driver of the bullion van decided to ease himself (use the toilet) or something because Tinubu’s house is secure? You don’t know. The people saying these things have to proof that there was money inside the bullion van. They have to prove that the man who brought the bullion van came to see Bola Tinubu. Nothing has been proven yet but they just start throwing these things all over the place as if a bullion van in somebody’s premises is a crime.
The PDP chieftain also alleged that Tinubu uses consulting firm, Alpha Beta, to allegedly siphon Lagos resources. Is this true?
You know where Lagos was in 1999. A so-called commercial centre of Nigeria that was generating about N600m every month but Tinubu came and believed that the state couldn’t fulfil its potential if it continued on the trajectory of low revenue. He sat down with people in Alpha Beta to say let us increase the revenue of the state. Many people are talking but they are not seeing the results of Alpha Beta in Lagos. From N600m, the state was generating close to N15bn every month before Tinubu left office. Look at the percentage difference. In fact, during COVID-19, Lagos recorded N40bn courtesy of the technical assistance of Alpha Beta.
Alpha Beta has even been working in about 12 other states in Nigeria. If they are so bad, they won’t be allowed into other states. It is the results we should look at; Alpha Beta helped the revenue of Lagos State.
Does Tinubu have shares in Alpha Beta as alleged by Bode George?
Alpha Beta is a company. Anyone can go to the Corporate Affairs Commission to see whether Bola Tinubu’s name is there. All these accusations from Bode George will fail if he goes to court because he cannot prove it. He is just making them because of pure hatred for a man who has defeated and diminished him as a PDP leader in the state and who has failed repeatedly. Bode George tried the ‘O to Ge’ in 2019 but failed. Why should you have a political party in any state if the party is not performing? He is a failure.
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