The All Progressives Congress (APC) has defended the visit of its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu to former President Olusegun Obasanjo in August 2022, while criticising the later’s endorsement of the Labour Party’s (LP) Peter Obi.
The former president endorsed the LP standard bearer in a six-page open letter, while making scathing allusions to other candidates, including Tinubu and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar.
“Let me say straight away that ‘Emi Lokan’ (my turn) and ‘I have paid my dues’ are one and the same thing and are wrong attitudes and mentality for the leadership of Nigeria now,” he wrote.
Emi Lokan was popularised by Tinubu in his June 2022 address in Abeokuta, Ogun State as he pushed for the party’s ticket then.
However, a spokesman for the Tinubu/Shettima PCC, Kehinde Bamgbetan, who appeared on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Monday, said the APC candidate only visited Obasanjo as a show of peace.
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“That is what you call diplomacy with elder statesmen. It’s a normal diplomatic move that will show that you’re not out to fight anybody.
“But it does not mean you do not know the capacity of the person you are going to visit. This announcement of a verdict is totally not correct because it is deceptive.
“We know that has been his history: trying to impose, hoist, manipulate, and we are sure that he has seen the handwriting on the wall in the past about his capacity to convert these words into action. We know that he will not win even a polling booth in Ogun State there.”
