Breaking: Former Military President IBB Rules Out Atiku, Tinubu From 2023 Race
- Former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, has revealed why Nigerians should not vote for old politicians in 2023
- Babangida, who is fondly called IBB, said on Friday, August 6, that the country needs a young and vibrant Nigerian to take over from Buhari
- According to him, Nigeria has both human and natural resources to transform the country without foreign assistance
PAY ATTENTION: Join Legit.ng Telegram channel! Never miss important updates!
Minna, Niger - The national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and a former vice president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar's ambition to become president in 2023, might have hit the wall.
Arise TV reports that a former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB), has urged Nigerians not to vote for anybody who is above 60 years of age as the president in the next general election.
Source: UGC
Legit.ng gathered that both Atiku and Tinubu, who was the former governor of Lagos state between 1999 and 2007, would be in their 70s in 2023.
The ex-vice president Atiku, who is 75 this year would be 77, while Tinubu, who marked an official 68th birthday in March, would have turned 70 years by the next general elections.
Bad leadership to blame for Nigeria's challenges
Babangida, who said the nation is endowed with both human and natural resources, hinted at a few individuals he said were in their 60s, who had the capacity to become president and could effectively run the country.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on the TV station on Friday, August 6, IBB said one of the reasons Nigeria has refused to progress and achieve the dreams of the founding fathers was because Nigerians no longer believed in the future of their own country.
The former leader, who accused the Nigerian people of creating and at the same time, destroying their own country, identified bad leadership as yet a major reason for the socio-economic challenges facing Nigeria.
Speaking about possible 2023 presidential candidates, IBB said there were persons in their 60s with contacts across the nation and who had been traversing the geo-political zones marketing their acceptability and capacity.
He said:
“If you get a good leadership that links with the people and tries to talk with the people; not talking on top of the people, then we would be okay.
“I have started visualising a good Nigerian leader. That is, a person, who travels across the country and has a friend virtually everywhere he travels to and he knows at least one person that he can communicate with.
“That is a person, who is very versed in economics and is also a good politician, who should be able to talk to Nigerians and so on. I have seen one, or two or three of such persons already in his sixties.”
PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read the best news on Nigeria’s #1 news app
Top PDP, APC chieftains want a young politician to succeed Buhari in 2023
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Nigerian politicians of southeast extraction believe it is time for the mantle of national leadership to be given to the young generation.
It was reported that those who aired this view on Thursday, August 5, during a programme of the Nigerian Diaspora Youth Ambassador (NDYA) organised in Abuja were Senators Eyinnaya Abaribe, Rochas Okorocha, and Orji Kalu among others.
Abaribe added that the National Assembly is currently working on part of the Nigerian constitution to allow the active participation of youths in politics.
Source: Legit.ng
