APC 2023 POLITICS: Osinbajo disagrees with Tinubu over Muslim-Muslim ticket

Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the ALL Progressive Congress presidential candidate, former governor of Senator Kashim Shettima on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, has put the former Lagos state governor on a collision course with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who has reportedly warned against such adoption does not bode well for either the party or the country.

A Presidency source announced yesterday that Osinbajo had expressed serious objection to accepting a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

"Professor Osinbajo is opposed to this matter announced on Sunday, and his objections are well known to both the party and the flag-bearer himself," the source said, adding that the vice president turned down a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2014 before anything changed later out as his own eventual VP nomination.

Then he is said to have explained to Tinubu that a Muslim-Muslim ticket would simply isolate Christians. Later, then-APC flag-bearer President Buhari also shared this position, turning down offers to nominate Tinubu as his running mate after he came forward as the presidential candidate.

The informed source said that Osinbajo recently advised APC chiefs and Tinubu to avoid an unbalanced ticket, arguing that it was simply an untenable and unnecessary risk.

The source said: "The VP stated that the logic, fairness and justice of a balanced ticket is unassailable. The argument that merit should come before a Muslim-Christian balance represents a wrong choice. It is not one or the other. You can get all the merits you want in a balanced ticket.

“The VP said anything but a balanced ticket is creating unnecessary tension and further exacerbating some of the country's fault lines. But a balanced ticket definitely sends a positive signal.”

As political tensions brewed, new talks of policy realignments were already buzzing, as following Sunday's announcement some other registered parties are said to be making plans to form a new coalition with Vice President Osinbajo, seen as an opportunity to make a credible bid and faith-balanced option in next year's presidential election. A source said a meeting to explore such a possibility is in the works.

"APC may have shot itself in the foot with this type of ticket and the tension that has existed in the party and the country since the announcement is a bad thing," the source said.

Source