Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has described the presidential flag bearer of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as “President-in-waiting”, saying all odds are in his favour.
Bello, who spoke with newsmen on Friday after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja, also noted that Tinubu’s chances are much brighter by his youth followership, that he assured of playing a critical role in the Tinubu administration.
The governor, who said he came to pay the President a ‘thank you visit’, also listed the support of the President for the candidate, especially making himself available to participate in the nationwide campaigns, as one of the indicators to Tinubu’s eventual victory on February 25, 2023.
He, however, noted that it will be useless for anyone to be campaigning against Tinubu because it would rather serve him positively by making him more popular.
Said he: “Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu has 21 APC governors. Asiwaju has touched lives of Nigerians across the board. He is a performer, he’s a builder, he builds human beings, he builds nations.
“He has started telling us exactly what he’s going to do and his administration, by the special grace of God, is going to be more run by the younger generation and you know that the younger generation constitutes the quantum number of voters in this coming election.
“We’re more enlightened. We know exactly and we know that Bola Ahmed Tinubu knows the road and we are ready to follow that person who knows the road, which is Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Thank God that is a candidate of President Muhammadu Buhari and that is why you can see that President Muhammadu Buhari is already campaigning for him, that he will continue where he will stop, to continue to add to the value of what he has put on ground.
“So issue of any other person campaigning against him, I mean, you’re only making him to be more popular. He’s already a good product that has sold himself, he has distinguished himself and we’re all 100% ready to vote Bola Ahmed Tinubu, come 25th of February 2023 and we will joyfully escort him to the villa on May 29, 2023, by the special grace of god. Jagaban is just a president-in-waiting, by the special grace of God”.
Speaking on the purpose of his visit to the seat of government, Bello said he was visiting the President to thank him to the recent State Visit to Kogi State, where he inaugurated a number of projects put in place by his administration.
According to him: “You’ll recall that Mr. President, the father of the nation, my own father, visited Kogi State on 29th of December 2022, almost the last state visit he will have within the country, inaugurating project.
“Graciously, he came, he saw and he believed exactly how we’ve been able to utilize the meagre resources in terms of envelope and little we have been able to generate as IGR within the state, the utilization, in terms of the projects and a legacy project that’s going to touch the lives of the citizens, decades, if not centuries, to come.
“It is a follow up visit that I come today to thank Mr. President, and to present an album of some of the projects he commissioned and by the special grace of God, we’re going to catalogue all of the projects and achievements within the life of this administration and present it to him and to the whole world to see.
“Mr President was so happy and he appreciated me, he appreciated the good people of Kogi State, for giving us support and for coming out en mass and welcoming him, and for the warm reception”, he said.
On what the secret of his achievements and delivery of his projectsare, the governor said “immediately Mr. President assumed office, he quickly hit the ground running in terms of infrastructure, in terms of fighting insecurity, in terms of delivering good governance to the people. By the special grace of God, when I came on board, I had no other thing to do than to emulate him and to make sure that infrastructure is provided for the people.
“Once there is infrastructure, businesses will run, people will mind their business, without necessarily waiting for government. That is the only thing we can do for the people and that is why we are elected into this office and that is what I will continue to do till the last day I leave office”, Bello further said.
Deji Elumoye in Abuja
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