Unlike MKO Abiola’s Situation, Group Send Strong Message To #Tinubu Over Muslim-Muslim Ticket

Unlike MKO Abiola‘s Situation, Group Send Strong Message To #Tinubu Over Muslim-Muslim Ticket—The Coalition Movement for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, COMBAT a group based in the South-West has come up with a solution if the presidential flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress, APC chooses to run a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

In a report released on Sunday, titled, ‘Nigeria Stakeholders Engagement Review: APC 2023 Presidential Election.’ the group noted that the emergence of Tinubu as the a Muslim from Lagos State in the South-West has turned out to be quite challenging.

According to the report, the situation is “a reversal of political status on the country in 1993” when the late Chief MKO Abiola, a Muslim from the South, ran the presidential election with Bashir Tofa, another Muslim from the North.

The group insisted that if a Muslim-Muslim ticket should be adopted then strategic positions should be given to individuals from other zones to diffuse the situation.

The report read in part: “Expectedly, Christian Association of Nigeria’s vehement opposition to such a ticket favour opposing views among the segment of the party and non-party public, especially from the Southern part of the country. For those opposing the Muslim-Muslim ticket, it is perceived that the ticket will be a direct challenge to the Christian community and may have a negative impact on the chance of the party winning the 2023 presidential election.

“There is school of thought who doesn’t see Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s wife (Senator Oluremi Tinubu) being a Christian and a possible First Lady as a solution to the issue because they thought the attention given to the South-North regional diversity should be applied to Muslim-Christian diversity as well.

“All over the world politics is about interest, which can be personal, communal, ethnic, racial, religious, etc. However, there are strong views who believe that strong and admirable values and visions for nation-building should override these sentiments which should be our selling proposition.

With this development, political analysts believed that the chances of presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the ruling party of APC to retain the position in the 2023 may be threatened based on the outcome of selection of a vice-presidential candidate for the 2023 election.

“Those supporting a Muslim running mate to Tinubu believe that it would be politically expedient for the party to take advantage of huge potential voters in the northern regions, dominated by Muslim population and being the stronghold of the party in the last two presidential elections.”

“The fear about the Muslim-Muslim ticket can be doused through a political solution where strategic government positions are zoned to individuals from others (zones) not represented at the presidential or vice-presidential level. Such positions may include the President of the Senate president, Speaker of the House of Reps, and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, etc.”