The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has asked Nigerians to wait till January 2022 for the National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, to declare whether he will be running for president in 2023 or not.
Fashola disclosed this during a monitored interview on Channels Television aired on Friday.
When he was asked if he will support the candidacy of the national leader of the APC in the 2023 election, Fashola said Tinubu has not informed him he is running in 2023.
“I saw him last week; he didn’t tell me he is running for office and to the best of my knowledge, the last statement he made about it was that people would know in January,” he said.
The Minister was also asked if he enquired from Tinubu about his intention to run, during the visit he said, “No, I didn’t ask him, I only went to see how well he was doing.
“He has issued a statement that I will speak in January, so let’s wait for his speech.”
Fashola on whether he is speaking for any aspirant come 2023, explained that “As far as I am aware, nobody has said, ‘I want to be Nigeria’s President’. There are people speaking for people. Nobody has come out, we are not at that stage yet.
“I can’t venture out and say that I will speak for X or Y. Let the person come out and say, ‘I want to serve Nigeria’.
“It pains me sometimes when we see that very important job and responsibility to, ‘My people said’. I think the whole sense of it should be that I am able, I have look at myself, give me your problem, you go to sleep’.”
Of recent, different political groups have drummed support for Tinubu’s presidential candidacy with billboards and posters in some parts of the country, especially major cities – Lagos and Abuja.
Fashola before his appointment as minister by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 was two term governor of Lagos State from 2007 to 2015. He was Chief of State to Tinubu who governed Lagos from 1999 to 2007.
