Redeemed Pastor, Osibajo to emerge Buhari's Vice President

One thing about Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is that he has a way of throwing up good men. You can hardly see him bring out a thug or rough politician for any serious political office in Nigeria. Give it to him!
Subject to any last minute changes, the presidential candidate of the APC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari may have ignored the high-wire politics that have dogged the choice of his running mate by settling for former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State, Prof Yemi Osibajo, whose name will be announced on Wednesday as the party's vice-presidential candidate.

Osibajo emerged from an expanded list of Christian vice-presidential hopefuls from the South after a meeting of the leadership of the party last night in Abuja.

According to a party source, who was privy to the meeting, Osibajo was selected because he is a pastor of the Redeemed Church, whose Christian congregants Buhari and the APC are targeting in the 2015 presidential election.

All political parties have till the end of today to submit the name of candidates vying for various political offices to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Buhari and the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun were handed the task of choosing a running mate for the party from the array of candidates jostling for the office following the inability of one of the party's leaders, Bola Tinubu to pick a running mate from the South-west zone.

Speaking to expectant journalists, who had laid siege on the national secretariat of the party on Tuesday, Mr. Oyegun said the running mate to its presidential candidate will be unveiled on Wednesday.

Oyegun said the party's leadership had after due consultations mandated Buhari to announce the name.

Responding to concerns over the delay in announcing the party's vice presidential candidate, Oyegun said the delay was not intentional but that Buhari has now accepted to make his choice public.
Following the inability of the leadership of the APC to agree on a running mate at a meeting, which started on Monday night, it asked each of the three zones in the South to present their choice of prospective running mates from amongst whom Buhari was expected to select one of them as his deputy.

However, a party chieftain insisted last night that the vice-presidential post was still zoned to the South-west and it was on this basis that it presented the highest number of candidates for Buhari to choose from, before he selected Osibajo from the pack.

He said by picking Osibajo as his running mate, Buhari was adhering to the arrangement, which zoned the vice-presidency to the South-west, in line with the pre-merger arrangement that led to formation of APC.
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN