By Olusegun Olanrewaju
The stage appears set for a battle of political supremacy between the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in Nigeria’s succession game for the presidency in the 2023 elections.

Tinubu and Osinbajo have started strident campaigns to replace the incumbent, but soon outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari, who is due for retirement next year.

Buhari has said he is retiring to his private farm in his native Daura town in Katsina State after retirement in May 2023 and Tinubu travelled last Monday to the seat of power at Aso Rock in Abuja, apparently to woo the president for his replacement in office.

The former governor of Lagos State came out of the closed-door meeting with the news that he had informed Buhari of his intention to vie for the president in 2023.
“I can answer a categorical yes. I have informed the president of my intention, but I have not informed the Nigerians yet. I am still consulting,” Tinubu told journalists after he held an indoor meeting with Buhari on Monday.

He added, “I have no problem consulting and I have not set a parameter of limitation to the extent of how many people I will consult. “You will soon hear all you want to hear. It’s a categorical declaration. You’ve gotten that truth from me that I have informed Mr President of my ambition, and you don’t expect more answers than that,” Tinubu explained.

Osinbajo, who was said to have ridden on the shoulders of Tinubu to the vice presidency, has not publicly declared his take, but activities are going on loud on the field by his foot soldiers who are cashing in on the perceived shortcomings of his former boss, who has refused to slip into what is considered in some quarters as a more noble role as a ‘kingmaker’.

President Buhari, whose tenure in office is tied by the synergies of the duo has, so far, remained non-committal, but some comments are trailing some high profile assignments he has been giving his deputy in office, in the last his tenure.

A snippet of this can be gleaned in an interview he granted recently on the privately-owned Channels TV penultimate Thursday, in which Buhari said he had no anointed successor.

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That goes contrary to some alleged grounds making the round that there had been an undeclared ‘pact’ between Buhari and Tinubu to swerve positions as a precondition to helping the former to power years ago.

Buhari declared, on a blunt note, that he does not care about whoever succeeds him. The President’s apparent indecision to his succession plan is attracting comments from stakeholders.

Two members of one of the mainstream trends in Lagos APC ranks told ThisNigeria in confidence that “We, as party members, are not aware of any pact between them. But maybe they do, between themselves.” It is expected that, in a matter of days, Osinbajo will declare his intention to run.

In Lagos, where the real battle for the South-West ticket will be fought between the two gladiators, the battle for containment and space between the two camps may have already started, without announcement.

Our reporter who went round the city over the weekend noted that Tinubu’s campaign banners have been yanked off the wall of the palace of at least one king, whose pro-Tinubu’s activities have never been concealed, even in build-up to previous elections.

Tinubu has been having problems with the mainstream Yoruba socio-cultural-cum-political tendency, Afenifere. The group had been instrumental to his emergence as Lagos governor in 1999.

However, Tinubu’s supporters are fighting back. They feel the vice president is “biting the finger that fed him.” That was the summary of a party official on Friday.

Soldiers’ in the Osinbajo front are pushing him to contest. Tinubu’s men in South West Agenda for Asiwaju (SWAGA) and other groups are also there on the street beating the drums of war for their principal.

Only last week, a group in Ogun State, the home front of the vice president, openly threw its weight behind Osinbajo, even with President Buhari visiting. Pundits are saying a fight is imminent.