ABUJA – Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, former Governor of Lagos State Governor and has emerged the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 presidential election after winning the party’s Special National Convention by a landslide.
He polled a vast majority of the votes to win the presidential primary held on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 7 and 8, leaving his main challengers, former Transportation Minister Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who polled 316 votes and 235 votes respectively.
At the convention held at Eagle Square, Abuja, the pendulum started swinging in favour of Tinubu, the national leader of the ruling party, when several aspirants withdrew from the race and advise their supporters to vote for him.
Setting the ball rolling for the stepping down galore was a former Akwa Ibom governor, Senator Godswill Akpabio, who pulled out of the race for Tinubu at 10:06pm.
It was after Akpabio that a former governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, Governor Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti), former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, Governor Abubakar Badaru (Jigawa), Senator Robert A. Boroffice and a female aspirant, Uju Ken-Ohanenye, also stepped down for Tinubu.
In all, seven aspirants, who picked the party’s tickets for N100 million each, stepped down for the former Lagos State governor. The event slated to commence at 3.30 pm, started four hours late at 7.30pm.
Forty-year-old aspirant, Felix Nicholas, said to be the youngest in the race, stepped down for Osinbajo.
Among those who scored zero votes were Senator Rochas Okorocha, Pastor Tunde Bakare and businessman, Tien Jack Rich.
The announcement of results is still on-going.
