By Jude Opara and Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

The National Leader of the ruling – All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday held a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa.

The APC national leader said this while speaking with State House Correspondents in Abuja, after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari, at the Aso Rock Villa.

 Tinubu said that it was  too early to start discussing who would takeover power from President Buhari in 2023, described those making the calls as enemies of Nigeria.

Tinubu also extolled President Buhari’s strength of character and integrity, saying that he had no doubt about the President’s position on the rumoured third term agenda.

He said that he was sure that President Buhari would reject any call for a third term even if suggested to him.

Tinubu’s remarks however, sharply contrasted with the views of the Founder of Later Rain Assembly, Pastor Tunde Bakare  who had earlier  called on   President Muhammadu Buhari to choose his successor for 2023.

It would be recalled that Bakare, a close ally of President Buhari and his running mate in 2011 presidential election, recently charged the President to start paying attention to his succession plan.

 Also, there had been lots of dusts raised from different parts of the country on which geo-political zone  should produce President Buhari’s successor.

 Responding to a question on who should be or where the President’s successor should come from, Tinubu said “that time is not now. We have just finished one election and Mr President is busy sorting out the Budget, working for the people of this country.

“Of course, restlessness of politics is going to be there, but any lover of this country will not talk about the succession plan yet. That’s the truth. Concentrate on working for the country, help the President to help the country. There’s nothing more than that.

“We cannot use 365 days in a year and 360° to work on politics, it’s not possible. Anybody talking about that now is just completely restless and not focused on the agenda of nation building and development of our country”, he said.

Speaking to the issue of the President’s choice to address the third term rumour, Tinubu said the rumour was fabricated by his detractors, noting that he had not for once doubted the integrity of the President.

“Any reasonable politician, who had worked with President Muhammadu Buhari will know that he will not (tamper with the Constitution). Detractors are always suspicious and will make accusations, but I was in the trench, in the struggle for democracy.

“I was in the trench and in the opposition with Muhammadu Buhari, till the Third Term agenda of a former leader of this country failed. I know he will never. He has the courage and the character to refuse such a temptation even if offered to him. I believe in him and I believe Nigerians should also believe in him.

“He doesn’t need to say it to me, I’ll argue it in the corner and everywhere they bring such a thing up. However, it’s very good to hear it from him. I say congratulations to a man of character and integrity. The challenge of turning the ship of this nation around is a continuum and a continuous effort and that is what we should get ourselves concerned with.

“Yes, politics is intoxicating, it’s flamboyant, it’s interesting, but we cannot continue in perpetuity one after the other, we have to relax, show concern for the people of the country and see to the efforts of the President that will manifest in the new, united and prosperous country. We are still not there”, he said.

He also commended the President for using his New Year message to Nigerians to touch their most critical concerns.

He, however, noted that the issues highlighted in the message by the President, like security and economy, are works in progress, which would continue to require constant work, to make life easier for the common man.

He said he was visiting the President to greet him for the New Year, consult with him on national issues and wish him well.

“His New Year message resonated very well; he showed concern about the security and the understanding that the economy is still a challenge, but it’s a work in progress, you’ll have to continue to work on it and make it better for the common man. That’s the meat of the message”, he said.

Okurounmu Berates Bakare over 2023 comments

Certainly, the last is yet to be heard of the call by the Pastor of the Later Rains Assembly, Tunde Bakare on President Muhammadu Buhari to choose who will succeed him in 2023.

A chieftain of the Yoruba socio-political organization – Afanifere, Sen. Femi Okurounmu, has berated the fiery pastor over the comments warning that it was not the duty of an incumbent president to decide who would succeed him.

According to him, such call was against the tenets of democracy, adding that it had the potential of derailing the country’s democratic journey.

 The Afenifere chieftain, who spoke with journalists in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, advised President Buhari against heeding such advice.

“I read through the whole so-called state of the nation broadcast. The only thing I agree with, in the statement, is that Nigeria is rotten from top to bottom. His analysis of how rotten Nigeria is, accurate.

“But when he then goes on to say that it is not by accident that Buhari is the president at this time, that God has put him in a place where he can restore Nigeria to a place where all of us can be proud to call ourselves Nigerians, I think he’s living in a fool’s paradise; because you cannot ask a man who is lame as your representative to come and run 100 metres dash when you know he cannot move.

“Our experience with Buhari in the last five years of his administration has shown Buhari to be the very opposite of the kind of man Bakare is asking Buhari to be. The man has shown himself to be the greatest divider that Nigeria has known in terms of being a leader.”

Okurounmu further stated  that Tunde Bakare was pretending by asking Buhari to do what he knows that Buhari cannot do because it is beyond him to select his successor.