Former Presidential aide, Reno Omokri, has berated the immediate past Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, for dismissing claims that President Bola Tinubu made his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, President.
Naijaonpoint recalls that in the buildup to the 2023 presidential election, President Bola Tinubu had claimed that he was instrumental in making Buhari President.
“If not for me that stood behind Buhari, he wouldn’t have become the President. He tried the first time, he failed. The second time, he failed. The third, he failed.
“He even wept on national television and vowed never to contest again but I went to meet him in Kaduna and told him he will run again, I will stand by you and you will win, but you must not joke with Yorubas and he agreed,” Tinubu had said.
However, speaking at the unveiling of Garba Shehu’s book “According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesperson’s Experience,” the former SGF said Buhari already had 12 million votes and that the merger of the legacy parties merely contributed three million votes.
Mustapha, who admitted that the Congress For Progressive Change (CPC) controlled only one state while the All Progressives Congress (APC) was being formed, maintained that the votes that delivered victory for APC came from the CPC and followers of Buhari.
Reacting, during an interview on ARISE Television on Wednesday, Reno Omokri slammed Boss Mustapha’s comments crediting Buhari’s solo popularity for his 2015 victory.
According to Omokri, Buhari would not have won the election without the support of President Tinubu.
He remarked, “Boss Mustapha was just being silly… Without Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s history would have not been the same. President Jonathan would have won that election and General Buhari would have just been… a tiny dot, like he likes to say about the southeast, a dot in a circle.”
Speaking on the political landscape, Omokri rejected the notion that Nigeria is drifting toward a one-party state, saying, “More people are joining the APC because of the performance of President Bola Tinubu… That is performance, whether you like it or not.”