Former head of state, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), might have named Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as the successor to President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.
IBB appeared to rule out former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and a former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu because they would be in their 70s by next election.
Although he did not mention any names in a two-part exclusive interview to be aired on Arise News Channel focusing on the State of the Nation, the former military ruler suggested that individuals in their 60s should be the focus of Nigerians as potential presidential candidates in 2023.
He added that one of the reasons Nigeria has refused to progress and achieve the dreams of the founding fathers is because Nigerians no longer believed in the future of their own country.
Almost describing the personality and leadership of Osinbajo, IBB said, the person has to be popular with the people and can travel across Nigeria, something akin to Osinbajo’s Family Chat.
“If you get a good leadership that links with the people and tries to talk with the people; not talking on top of the people, then we would be okay.
“I have started visualising a good Nigerian leader. That is, a person, who travels across the country and has a friend virtually everywhere he travels to and he knows at least one person that he can communicate with.
“That is a person, who is very verse in economics and is also a good politician, who should be able to talk to Nigerians and so on. I have seen one, or two or three of such persons already in his sixties.”
But when asked if the person could emerge victorious in the 2023 presidential election, the Minna-born former military leader said, “I believe so if we can get him.”
Responding to a question on whether or not he still believed in the future of Nigeria, the former military president, who turns 80 on August 17, 2021, said: “I do believe in the future of Nigeria, but Nigerians don’t believe in the future of their country. They created and they destroyed.”
IBB who turns 80 on August 17 is one of the leaders like Muhammadu Buhari who have dominated Nigeria’s political space since 1966.
