From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has reportedly narrowed the search for a running mate for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to a northern Christian.
Daily Sun learnt that the party is considering former Speaker House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha.
It was gathered that the choice of Dogara was influenced by his political network which extends to the opposition PDP.
A highly placed member of the ruling party revealed that the SGF is also seriously favoured because of his closeness to President Muhammadu Buhari and as someone already in the corridors of power.
He said: “The choice of the two is understandable because apart from giving the Christians the desired sense of belonging, and pacifying the already aggrieved Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), they can poll millions of votes from the dominant Northern electorate.
“Don’t also forget that Dogara has followers and friends in the PDP capable of giving our party over four million votes. The choice of Boss Mustapha is also strategic because it will give a sense of belonging to President Buhari.”
Daily Sun also learnt that the choice of running mate is tearing the members of the northern APC Governors Forum apart with the likes of the governors of Kano and Kaduna states, Abdullahi Ganduje, and Nasir El-Rufai respectively, battling to gain advantage.
The battle among the APC northern governors, our source revealed, was necessitated by the party’s Plan B of settling for a Muslim/Muslim joint ticket.
“There is a serious battle among the northern governors over who should be taken should the party finally settle for a Muslim/Muslim joint ticket.
“The two front runners include Kano State, Ganduje, and his Kaduna counterpart, El-Rufai. But for now, I can tell you that the Muslim/Muslim ticket has not gained wide acceptability.”
He said the former governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima has been pencilled down for the position of the SGF even as the APC national stakeholders have warned the national leadership not to make the mistake of settling for a Muslim/Muslim ticket should they want the party to retain its presidential seat beyond 2023.
Convener of the stakeholders, Aliu Audu, at a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, noted that they were deeply concerned about the raging controversy heating the polity in the last few days.
“While we are conscious of the fact that religion should not be a determining factor in our leadership selection process, the peculiar circumstance the nation funds herself calls for deeper reflection in the decisions we take, so long as they border on our national lives.
“Today, the country is deeply divided within our fault lines of ethnicity and religion and we cannot afford to jettison thses sensibilities in critical decision making. This is why we think that the All Progressives Congress must be guided by the sense of these sensibilities in the selection of the Vice Presidential Candidate of the party.”