Speculation of running for vice president is baseless, says Dogara

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has dismissed the speculation that he is planning to run for the presidency in 2023 with former Lagos State governor and National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu.

Dogara dumped the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in July and joined the ruling APC.

In a statement at the weekend, he stated that APC had no flag-bearer for the 2023 presidency yet “and no political party sells nomination and expression of interest form for the post of a running mate as he or she is appointed or selected by a flag bearer.”

The former speaker said his initial decision was to “ignore those making the speculation 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.

“To stop further spread of this deliberate mischief whose objective is yet to be ascertained, the public is hereby advised to disregard and totally discountenance the purported story and pictures for what they are – handiwork of mischief makers.”

Dogara alleged that the stories and pictures were being sponsored by officials of the Bauchi State government “in their desperate bid to lend credence to the infantile delusions of their principal, captured in his ludicrous postulations that I left the PDP just because I was ‘deceived’ by the APC with the promise of a position come 2023.”

The statement claimed that the Bauchi State Governor Bala Mohammed “had publicly alluded to this and has continued to push these narratives all in an effort to malign and disparage Dogara”, and divert attention of the people from alleged poor governance in the state.

According to the former speaker, “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.

“To our best knowledge, no political party sells nomination and expression of interest form 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 vice president when no flag-bearer has emerged.”

He said he was busy helping to rebuild and reposition the APC in Bauchi State and wished to be allowed to focus on just that.