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The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajibola Bashiru, says President Bola Tinubu enjoys an overwhelming endorsement from party stakeholders to run for re-election in 2027 but discussions for the choice of his running mate are not on the table yet.
Bashiru, a lawyer who was on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme on Friday said Tinubu’s running mate would be decided after the party’s convention which is usually held about one year to the general election.
Senator Bashiru who was once spokesman for the Senate said: “As far as we are concerned, the national summit held in the Presidential Villa has endorsed Mr President based on his track record and a large spectrum of stakeholders in our party have also overwhelmingly given endorsement to Mr president.
“The question of running mate is not yet on uboard and nobody has come to say that the president has made any adverse decision as regards the present vice president,” he said.
On the squabble at a summit for APC stakeholders from the North-East which became rowdy in Gombe State after APC North-East Vice Chairman, Mustapha Salihu, named Tinubu as the party’s sole candidate for re-election without mentioning Vice President Kashim Shettima, Bashiru said he was physically present at the summit and what happened wasn’t strange as “people in a democratic setting are bound to have different opinions”.
He said, “As far as I am concerned, there was no issue. I was physically present in Gombe State. After the summit, we had a reception at the Government House.
“Some people in the North East felt that it suffices to give endorsement to the president and then the president will be in a position to decide who would be his running mate in 2027.
“Some other people are of the view that it is also important that since the summit is being held in the North East, the vice president, coming from the North-East, should equally have an endorsement.
“What I know is that even at the national convention where a candidate for the presidential election will emerge, it is only the presidential candidate that will emerge at the convention.
“The running mate issue will be done after that. As far as our party is concerned, we have not made any statement or got ourselves involved in the politics of the North-East.”
