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In the homestretch to the 2023 presidential elections, the Director of Civil Society in the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Hajiya Naja’atu Muhammad, who quit her position, insisted that the emergence of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu at the APC primary was regretful.
She said she regretted APC’s decision to pick Tinubu over and above Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) as its candidate for the 2023 polls, in an interview with The Whistler newspaper.
Muhammad, who announced also quitting politics, told newsmen that she would have put her life on the line for Osinbajo if the ticket was given to him.
The Kano-born politician said ruefully: “If you (APC) had given me Osinbajo, I swear I would have put my life on the line for Osinbajo because he is a better person.
“He is open, he is proactive and he puts his eye on the ball and looks at Nigeria holistically.”
Naja’atu Muhammad’s resignation letter addressed to the APC National Chairman, Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, had cited “recent developments in the political and democratic space” as reasons for her decision to quit the party and the Campaign Council.”
The letter had read in part: ”The challenges facing the country today require me to continue championing the struggle for a better country with a clear conscience as I remain absolutely loyal to Nigeria.
“The problems require the consolidated efforts of competent and patriotic leadership across every level of governance.”
Extolling the leadership qualities of Osinbajo as the basis of her choice, Hajiya Muhammad also said: ”The few months that he (Osinbajo) was given the opportunity to act he changed things, so why should I be sentimental.”
She condemned the “decision” of some leaders of APC and the Southwest to have given “support” to Tinubu at the primary instead of the VP, pointing out that “Nigeria has become the personal property of some elites.”
“If the Yorubas were serious why not give it to Osinbajo, who is a pastor, you are doing Muslim-Muslim. The holy prophet said a just atheist is better than an unjust Muslim. So, why do I care about Muslim-Muslim?
“But they are busy not only galvanizing the polity but deceiving people, how Islamic are they? Somebody that could not even read Fatiha is calling himself a Muslim, without Fatiha you can’t pray, which means he has never prayed, what nonsense is that,” the former APC chieftain said.
Naja’atu Muhammad, who could not hide her admiration for Osinbajo’s disposition to politics and governance, however, condemned Tinubu’s desperation, saying “If you remove tribal sentiment, if you remove the Lagos/Ibadan press, if Tinubu were not a Yoruba man, he will not dare contest election because they will crucify him.
“But people are all there to defend him because he is Yoruba, it’s Egbe omo Oduduwa over everything else.”
Expressing disappointment with Tinubu’s unimpressive outings so far, she said: “I was in the campaign for Yola, and we had to beg them to take the microphone from him, everything about Tinubu is based on lies.
”Imagine he is an Hausa man, will he contest elections with all these ‘gbese’ on top of him? In this campaign nobody should talk of corruption because they are corruption personified.”
Naja’atu Muhammad noted that besides Osinbajo, Peter Obi of the Labour Party would have been another good choice but blamed his (Obi’s) inexperience and lack of structure among others as factors that might work against him
The political cum civil rights activist said she could no longer continue with the struggle for a better Nigeria on the platform of the proposed Tinubu presidency.