2023 Presidency: I Never Endorsed Osinbajo, Says Babangida

A former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, IBB has denied endorsing Vice President Yemi Osinbajo for 2023 presidential election.

A section of the Nigerian media had reported that  General Babangida  endorsed the candidature of Vice President Yemi Osibanjo in the 2023 presidential elections.

According to the report, IBB stated this when the Osibanjo Grassroot Organization visited him in his Uphill Residence in Minna.

Reacting to the report from Minna,  the former Head of State said he was misquoted by the media, saying he never endorsed the Vice President in 2023.

In the statement from his media office,  Babangida noted that despite rooting for a president that is  less than 70 years , there is no way he would endorse a South Westerner considering the mood of the country.

He, however, acknowledged eulogizing the leadership qualities of the Ogun State born politician.

Recall that the elder statesman had named the Chief Whip of the Senate, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu as a possible successor for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

The former military president stated this in a documentary aired on AIT.

He made the remark after he was asked to speak on the kind of character a politician is expected to exhibit in his desire to take over in 2023.

Babangida who was asked how he would like to address the leadership issue in the country during the interview said.

“We are running and we will be running a democracy, but we haven’t reached the level. We didn’t have the democratic institution that are working very well, our institutions must be above parties and politics and so on and so forth.”

“You have to have a lot of knowledge be it business, be it academics and so on and I feel everybody, every politician at certain age most aspire. Obama is just making sixty years old after serving two times in the United States so as Clinton and so on and so forth.”

“So we can have the likes of Orji Uzor Kalu who is interested in running the country and why not?”