As the election in Nigeria, West Africa, in 2023 approaches, speculations, intrigues, dynamics, and dealings abound as politicians from the two most popular political parties, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party, and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), try to outsmart one another in their quest to realize their ambitions.
This online news portal recognizes that the presidency is one of the governmental offices that has been the subject of public debate in Nigeria, with many residents displaying keen interest in who will succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, who is slated to step down after the 2023 election.
Few persons have publicly declared their interest in the plum office of the presidency, chief of which is the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and former governor of Lagos state, Nigeria’s commercial city, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu who recently informed President Buhari of his decision to contest the 2023 Presidential election.
There are speculations in some quarters that the nation’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, who happens to be Tinubu’s protégé, is also nursing a presidential ambition though the “body language” of the professor of law is yet to let the cat out of the bag.
In all this, what has kept Nigerians, especially those who are politically conscious, on tenterhooks, is who the “two-term democratically elected corruption-fighting Nigerian President” will throw his weight behind, knowing that the President’s support for any aspirant for the much anticipated 2023 presidential election in the West African country is a recipe for imminent victory.
So who is Buhari choice for 2023 presidency?
The question on the lips of many Nigerians now is who is Buhari choice for 2023 presidency? Well, this online news platform understands fresh details have emerged on who the president will be drumming support for in 2023 presidential election.
According Farooq Kperogi, Buhari’s top critic and professor of Journalism at Kennesaw state university, the president has disclosed the identity of the person he would like to succeed him in 2023.
The professor of Journalism said President Buhari has told Aso Rock cabal that he prefers former Bayelsa state governor and current minister of state for petroleum, Timipre Sylva, to succeed him.
Kperogi said President Buhari decided to go for Sylva, the minister of state for Petroleum in his government, because the chances of his first choice of successor, former president Goodluck Jonathan, contesting again has been hampered by legal constraint.
“After realizing that Jonathan can’t legally run for another presidential election, Buhari told the Aso Rock cabal that he wants former Bayelsa State governor and current minister of state for petroleum Timipre Sylva to succeed him. That’s still his preference.” Kperogi opined.
Making more revelations, the professor of journalism alleged that Aso Rock cabal was flummoxed and appalled by President Buhari’s pick of, first, Jonathan and later Sylva as his successor.
“That law basically makes it illegal for Jonathan to seek another term as president.
In fact, it was inspired by his 2015 presidential run after completing Umar Musa Yar’adua’s first term AND running and winning a second term in 2011.
Kperogi said President Buhari is unequivocal on not wanting anything to do with Tinubu and Osinbajo as his successor, his choice remains Sylva.
“He is clear that he wants neither Tinubu nor Osinbajo as his successors. Whether that insistence will have any consequences for the electoral fortunes of Tinubu and Osinbajo in the APC primaries is anybody’s guess” he said
Meanwhile,President Buhari’s choice of Sylva as his preferred successor ahead of the 2023 election, places a huge question mark on his own much touted integrity and uprightness due to credible allegations of multi-billion-naira corruption hanging around Sylva’s neck.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2013, seized 48 houses Sylva “corruptly acquired”, which it returned to him in 2016, months after he defected to the APC and later became a minister stilling serving under the “corruption-fighting” Buhari.