A former House of Representatives Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara has denied media reports that he is eyeing a vice presidency in 2023 general elections.
In a statement issued on Sunday by his media aide, Mr. Turaki Hassan, Dogara said he recently returned to the All Progressives Congress, APC, to rebuild the ruling party and not to become a running mate to the APC national leader, Bola Tinubu.
Dogara, who recently dumped the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, citing differences with Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi state, accused the governor of sponsoring the reports.
He noted that the action was taken by the governor to give traction to his allegation that he left PDP just because he was deceived by APC with the promise of a position in 2023.
The former Speaker urged the public to disregard the story and pictures, which he described as the handiwork of mischief-makers.
He said: “It has come to our notice that stories and images are being circulated on social media to the effect that Hon. Yakubu Dogara is running for the office of the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, for the president in 2023.
“Our initial decision was to ignore them since they are utterly baseless but it appears that the promoters of this fallacy are unrelenting in spreading the falsehood and have now succeeded in making it sound believable to the extent that even some conventional and ‘credible’ media platforms are beginning to take it up.”
He added: “2023 is still years away and therefore, it is unnecessary, distracting and insensitive to start making unfounded declarations at this time when all hands ought to be on deck in tackling the challenges of our nationhood.
“Furthermore, to our best knowledge, no political party sells nomination and expression of interest forms for the post of a running mate as he/she is only appointed or selected by a flag bearer.
“It is therefore preposterous for anyone to claim that someone is running for the position of VP when no flag-bearer has emerged.”
