Gambari: Buhari Told Northern Govs He Had No Preferred Candidate in 2023 Polls

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

Former Chief of Staff to the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, said Buhari did not believe in anointing a successor ahead of the 2023 presidential election. Gambari stated this on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

He was responding to claims that Buhari allegedly misled former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and former Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi to contest the presidency without being honest about his preferred candidate.

“He (Buhari) didn’t feel that he should have anointed candidate,” Gambari said, explaining that the former president made his position clear when 19 northern governors visited him after agreeing that power should shift to the south.

“The 19 northern state governors came to Buhari after they had made a declaration that the next president of Nigeria should come from the south and they signed it,” he said.

According to Gambari, the governors requested a meeting with Buhari to find out if he had already chosen a successor.

He said, “They now said they wanted to see the president. And when I told him, and I said, they want to see you, he said what about? I said, they want to know whether you have an anointed candidate. You are their leader.”

Gambari said he was present at the meeting and could only speak to what he personally witnessed.

“I was at that meeting, and I would like to talk about what I know, and they are all witnesses,” he added, saying he personally relayed the governors’ question to Buhari.

Gambari said, “They came. And I went to tell him, your guests are here. They want to know, do you have an anointed candidate for president and for the party nomination? And I said, by the way, I myself as your Chief of Staff, I would like to know.”

He disclosed that Buhari’s response was direct.

“And he said, I do not have an anointed candidate for president to be a successor. And I told him, well, you have to tell them. And he told them, that’s what I know now,” he said.

Gambari, however, said he could not speak about any private conversations Buhari might have had with individuals after the meeting.

“Of course, people can have interpretation of what he told them in private. I’m not privy to that, but clearly what he said on record that I, with the 19 northern state governors being there, is what I knew,” he added.

In June 2022, Amaechi and Osinbajo lost the presidential primary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the leader of the party and former Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, who eventually won the presidential election in 2023.

Tinubu defeated former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, then of Peoples Democratic Party and former Governor of Anambra, Peter Obi of Labour Party.