Why Bola Tinubu lost the 2023 presidential election

In his article, “Osinbajo’s Road to Abuja: The Untold Story,” Olawale Olaleye told how Osinbajo ‘defeated’ Bola Tinubu to become Muhammadu Buhari’s vice-presidential candidate.

According to the story, early in 2015, as soon as Buhari became the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu set up a committee to come up with a way to justify to the nation his inevitable choice as Buhari’s running mate. That was because the Buhari-Tinubu ticket would have imposed Muslim-Muslim candidates on Nigeria. One of the committee members was Yemi Osinbajo, the current Vice President of Nigeria. As the story went, Osinbajo expressed to the committee members that it would be difficult for him to go back to his constituency and explain the potential Muslim-Muslim ticket. Osinbajo’s discontent got to Bola Tinubu, and he held it as a grudge against his former Attorney-General when he was the governor of Lagos State.

While this was going on, Muhammadu Buhari’s committee set up to shortlist his possible Vice Presidential candidates arrived at three names. One of the names was Yemi Osinbajo. When Buhari took the three names to Bola Tinubu to give him the honor of picking one in recognition of his contribution to Buhari’s campaign, Tinubu flared up when he did not see his name on the list. In the intriguing negotiations…