Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says he was taken aback when he was chosen as President Muhammadu Buhari’s running mate in the run-up to the 2015 elections.
When he treated members of the state house press corps to Iftar at his official residence on Wednesday, Osinbajo said he was working on a case as a lawyer in Abuja when he learned he had been chosen.
Around 1:00 a.m. on December 18, 2014, the vice-president said Rauf Aregbesola, the minister of interior, informed him of the party’s decision.
Former Lagos governor Bola Tinubu is alleged to have influenced Buhari’s choice of Osinbajo as his running mate.
Aregbesola was an ally of Tinubu at the time. The relationship between both men have since gone cold.
“I was working on the case at Peniel Apartments in Abuja on December 18, 2014, when at about 1:00 am in the morning, I received a call from Rauf Aregbesola that they were coming to Lagos to pick me,” Premium Times quoted the number two citizen as saying.
“I said I was in Abuja. He said ‘good because you have been nominated as the vice-presidential candidate’ and I said that’s how you nominate people?”
He claimed that Aregbesola and former governor of Ogun state Ibikunle Amosun took him to visit Buhari, who was the APC’s candidate at the time.
Few people, he claims, have the kind of experience he does to be president of the country, and he says he is running to make Nigeria a better place.
Osinbajo will face off against Tinubu, Rotimi Amaechi, the Transportation Minister; Ibikunle Amosun, a serving senator; and Chris Ngige, the Labour Minister, for the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket.
