2019: Tinubu, Ajimobi, other regional leaders stay away, as Ministers, Nnamani, Kalu launch Buhari’s South West campaign office

The launch in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, on Saturday, may have exposed the truth about South West All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders who claim to be in support of his government and those who are not.

This was as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Governor of Oyo State Abiola Ajimobi, other South West governors and leaders stayed away as 2019 Presidential Campaign Office in South West for President Muhammadu Buhari was launched in Ibadan, Oyo State capital.

Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, his health counterpart, Isaac Adewole, former Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, a former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu and some members of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) stormed Ibadan Saturday and launched the South-West campaign office for the President, which is located at Mokola, Ibadan.

It would be recalled that Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s opposition to President Muhammadu Buhari has been clearly declared in his incessant launch of offensives against the man he suspected to be his choice for 2019 as Oyo State governor on the platform of the party, Barrister Abdulraheem Adebayo Shittu.

To drive home his fight against Shittu, Governor Ajimobi, who is said to be enjoying full support of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in all his actions currently, reportedly embarked on demolition of some CBT projects the Communications Minister had put in place to assist students of between 18 years upward in upping their educational and vocational skills thinking it was the best way to cut short the wings of the Oke Ogun-born former Attorney-General of the Oyo State for which reason Shittu had petitioned all that matter in the party hierarchy.

Watchers of event therefore were fast to say it was carrying far the fight against Buhari and Shittu that Governor Ajimobi, knowing that 2019 campaign office of the President was being launched by important party leaders of Yoruba and Igbo extractions in the same state where he is governor, failed to be present at the launch.

They however sensed that the governor may have also used his absence at the presidential campaign office launch as signpost to show President Buhari that, with Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and supportive effort of Adebayo Alao Akala, whose defection to APC recently was said to have been aided by Tinubu, he has no cause to worry over who his successor will be “but definitely, he does not want Shittu”.

At the launch, the Minister of Communications noted that what Buhari has done in two and half years, the past administration of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was not able to do it in 16 years, adding that Buhari has created jobs for over 200,000 people in Nigeria.

The Minister of Health emphasised unity and the need for eligible voters to ensure that they have their permanent voters’ cards.

Nnamani said the party needed to maintain internal decorum which is the only way to win the forthcoming general elections.

A former governor of Abia State, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu, warned that the lingering rift between Oyo State governor and Minister of Communications may spell doom for the APC in the state during the 2019 general elections if the party’s national body fails to broker peace.

Kalu warned just as a respondent warned Tinubu and other South West leaders against laying a precedent that will pitch the race against the Federal Government and other regions in the country.