A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Jesutega Onokpasa, says certain appointees of President Bola Tinubu are plotting to succeed him before the end of his tenure, wishing that the President will not make it to 2027 for their selfish reasons.
Onokpasa, a lawyer and former member of the APC Presidential Campaign Council for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who decried the alleged hypocrisy, pull- him-down mentality and anti-party activities going on in the governing party, cursed those he accused of wishing Tinubu dead.
He said, “If they don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend their funeral.”
He spoke in a video, where he was seen addressing party members and drawing their attention to the belief that the ongoing drama around the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s allegations against former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, and the continued attack on former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, were plans mapped out by these individuals to perfect their plans.
Expressing concern over ill treatments, selective prosecution and hounding meted out on some prominent chieftains of the party since the emergence of Tinubu’s presidency, Onokpasa said that the particular appointees he was referring to in Tinubu’s government were behind the ordeals of former Governors Yahaya Bello, Nasir El- Rufai and Abdullahi Ganduje in order to perfect their “satanic” succession plans, while wishing that the President would no longer be around by 2027.
Referring to a particular appointee of Tinubu whose name was not mentioned, the chieftain said, “You drive Rufai away, you start hounding Ganduje, although there are other things involved, you start attacking Yahaya Bello; what did you do? You don’t have mandate my friend, you are just an appointee… You think we don’t know what is going on?
“Asiwaju is a child of God. Asiwaju will rule this country for eight complete years. There is nothing anybody can do about that. He will rule this first four years. He will so perform, Nigerians, again, will vote for him and next time around, we will win a majority of the total votes cast. So, all these satanic plans, plotting that our President will not make it to 2027, is a waste of time.”
The party chieftain, known as a die-hard supporter of President Tinubu, also bemoaned what he called the attitude of “using and dumping” people who worked for the victory of the President in 2023, while those who were against the President and even insulted him, were being given priorities “over authentic supporters and genuine Batists”.
Onokpasa, who was also a member of the APC Presidential Legal Team and Chairman, Tinubu Media Support Group, added, “Of recent concern to me is the case of my younger brother, His Excellency, the former Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello. In this party, we have had our brother, the former governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El Rufai basically chased out of our party despite what he did for us to make us win. Now, it is Yahaya Bello. A few weeks or months ago, it was our National Chairman, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje that was basically almost being chased from our party.”
Blowing hot against those behind the ugly trend, who he claimed were arrogating powers to themselves at the detriment of Tinubu’s wellbeing, and warning them to desist, Onokpasa stated, “Listen, we cannot tolerate such nonsense in a party. Let everybody in this party come to his senses. We know how we won election. We won election because of the grace of God, because the grace of God is upon our President, Asiwaju. We won election with the lowest margin. This our government has the lowest margin since 1999. We won with less than 40 per cent of the votes. In every other election, someone had won with 50 per cent of the votes.
“Everybody that contributed to our victory is important to me, because me, I am a fanatical Batist. This is the way I see Bola Tinubu’s administration. Bola Tinubu is a child of grace. The way I see it, God wants Bola Tinubu to be our President and we need him to be our President for eight years. What we should all square up to right now is a question of, there is no need to beat about the bush; there are people in our party who don’t believe in our President. For whatever reason they feel, I don’t know where they went to. That’s their headache.”
He cautioned those wishing Tinubu dead, stressing that the president would make it beyond 2027.
“Even after that eight years, he (Tinubu) will become an elder statesman for many years after that.
Onokpasa recounted how a young man died in Edo State after wishing the President dead, saying, “I will like to share a story with you. There was this young man in Delta State where I come from. He had the guts to come to me and he said, uncle, this man, Bola Tinubu that you are supporting is going to die before the election. I asked him: Are you the God that created him? Do you know what happened? May his soul rest in peace. He died before Bola Tinubu won election.
“There are people in this party who don’t believe in Asiwaju. They never believed that Asiwaju could make it to 2027. Do you know what? All these people, if they don’t repent, Asiwaju will attend all of their funerals. They don’t have mandate, it is Asiwaju we voted for. It is Asiwaju that has mandate. It is Asiwaju that is the President. And we need Asiwaju to run complete eight years to finally make this country the pride of the black race.”
On the Bello-EFCC controversy, he said it was for the court to decide, adding: “Nobody is supporting corruption. However, we fight corruption according to law and you will not have a personal indifference with somebody and then you use the instrumentality of office to torment that person. We will not tolerate that in this party. We must not.”
He also lambasted a particular appointee that he portrayed to be high-handed, alleging that the appointee funded an opposition member against the APC candidate, Usman Ododo, during the Kogi State governorship election.
He said, “I mean, can you imagine the nonsense. You sponsored somebody who left our party, he used to be a member of our party committee; you claim to be a member of our party, you now sponsor him against our own candidate, Usman Ododo; you gave him money, he lost; we defeated him. Sorry! Then, you say his lawyer, my learned friend, Jibril Okutepa, is the one that you now brief to torment Yahaya Bello?
“I am very proud of Yahaya Bello, Yahaya Bello helped Asiwaju to win election. Anybody who helped Asiwaju to win election is my brother. He is my father’s son that my mother gave birth to. I don’t owe you any apology, who are you? Nonsense! You will turn all of us to cowards?”
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