Former Chief of Staff to late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, has revealed that Buhari clearly told 19 northern governors he had no anointed successor ahead of the 2023 presidential election.
Gambari made the disclosure during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, explaining that the issue came up during a private meeting between Buhari and the governors after they had collectively agreed that power should shift to the South.
According to Gambari, the northern governors had already signed a declaration supporting a southern presidency and then sought an audience with Buhari to confirm whether he had a preferred candidate to succeed him.
“He (Buhari) didn’t feel that he should have anointed candidate,” Gambari said. “The 19 northern state governors came to Buhari after they had made a declaration that the next president of Nigeria should come from the South and they signed it,” he said.
“They now said they wanted to see the President. And when I told him, and I said, they want to see you, he said what about? I said, they want to know whether you have an anointed candidate. You are their leader,” he said.
Gambari said he was present at the meeting and could only speak to what he personally witnessed.
“I was at that meeting, and I would like to talk about what I know, and they are all witnesses,” he added.
It will be recalled that both Amaechi and Osinbajo contested the APC presidential primary in June 2022 but lost to the party’s national leader and former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who later won the 2023 presidential election, defeating Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Labour Party candidate Peter Obi.