Igbawase Ukumba
Nasarawa State Governor, Abdullahi Sule, on Monday, said Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was a sellable product for the 2023 presidential election.
Sule addressed a political group, the Progressive Consolidation Group (PCG), which had come to sell the vice president as a potential presidential material ahead of the 2023 polls.
The group was at the Government House in Lafia, the state House of Assembly and the Palace of the Emir of Lafia and Chairman of the Nasarawa State Council of Traditional Rulers, Justice Sidi Bage (rtd) to solicit support for Osinbajo as President Muhammadu Buhari’s successor in 2023.
Speaking to the group led by its National Chairman, Rabiu Aliyu Kurfi, the governor told them that “not every product is sellable, but Vice President Osinbajo is a sellable product.
“You are speaking about continuation, which is what we believe here in Nasarawa State. You have been speaking about consolidation, and we know the challenges of consolidation and continuation of our party. This is a political party that is lucky or unlucky to be built around one man. And for us, the progressive governors are seeing at how do we sustain the party beyond the one man.
“Then you went more details to be talking about Professor Osinbajo; a man of God, a professional lawyer, a family man; a man that I have come to respect, because I was even given the opportunity to speak on his last birthday on behalf of the governors,” he noted.
Continuing, Sule claimed Osinbajo was a man he had come to respect, because he knew the vice president very well.
“We have the opportunity of having a gentleman that is a totally party person, loyal man to Mr President. And I believe you are selling him earlier than he is selling himself, which is the way it supposed to be.
“And those who are suppose to be talking about you are those who admire you, who understand who you are and are going in that direction. So, if you are going in that direction to sell this gentleman (Osinbajo), not every product is sellable. Osinbajo is a sellable product,” Sule maintained.
At its visit to the State House of Assembly complex, the Speaker, Hon Ibrahim Balarabe Abdullahi, told the group that members of the state assembly were looking unto Governor Sule to give them the direction to follow.
“Whatever he (Sule) has agreed with you, I can assure you is our position. We are grassrootspoliticians, because we are the ones relating with people at the grassroot, and his message will be taken to the grassroots at the appropriate time.
“So, have it at the back of your mind that as far as APC is concerned, the position of Governor Sule is the position of the Nasarawa State House of Assembly,” the Speaker re-echoed.
Earlier, Kurfi told Sule, Abdullahi and the Emir of Lafia that the group was on a voluntary mission soliciting support that would enable Osinbajo succeed President Buhari in 2023.
“The continuity of the good values already set by APC, and especially, by the president by himself; if political mentoring is anything to go by and I think it should, then, political mentoring of President Buhari has already gotten a scion in Osinbajo. That if political continuity should be the prevalent thing, then, obviously by getting Osinbajo, Nigeria will be better for it,” Kurfi said.
