I rejected Jonathan’s VP offer – Tinubu

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
| credits: File copy

A national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, says the recent attacks on his person were because he rejected the offer by President Goodluck Jonathan to serve as the Vice President in an Interim National Government.

Tinubu said in a statement by his media office on Thursday that having refused the offer, Jonathan was looking for ways to take him out either by killing him or getting him arrested based on trumped up charges.

The former governor of Lagos State said the Peoples Democratic Party had never been this rattled in its 16 years in power.

He said Jonathan blamed him for the successful merger of the APC and the momentum the APC presidential candidate, Maj.Gen Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) was gaining.

Tinubu said with the North-West and the South-West- the two most populous geo-political zones – in the hands, of the APC, it was certain that the PDP would lose.

“From what can be gathered through informed sources, the PDP and Jonathan Presidency had recently tried to fracture the APC by offering Tinubu the position of vice President in an interim government if he would agree to part company with the popular Buhari. Once Tinubu rebuffed the offer to participate in the interim scheme, the presidency decided to change tactics. It would no longer try to entice Tinubu with sugar but would now move to silence and if necessary neutralise him.

“The APC National leader has caused President Jonathan’s team countless headaches this campaign season, his declining the interim government offer is just the latest.”

The former governor said the recent hate documentaries televised were part of the desperate attempt by Jonathan to discredit him.

But the Director of Media and Publicity of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has described all these allegations as baseless and false.

Fani-Kayode in a statement said, “These allegations are baseless and false. These people have become prisoners of their own delusions and they have become victims of their horrific and terrifying hallucinations.”