Tinubu Delivered the ‘Golden Votes’ That Made Buhari President – Osita Okechukwu

Former Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VoN), Osita Okechukwu, has credited President Bola Tinubu with delivering the decisive “premium golden votes” that secured former President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory in the 2015 presidential election.

Okechukwu made this assertion on Thursday while reacting to recent comments by former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, who downplayed Tinubu’s role in Buhari’s electoral success. In a statement made available to journalists, Okechukwu dismissed Mustapha’s claims as historically inaccurate, stating that the former SGF lacked firsthand knowledge of the political negotiations that led to Buhari’s victory.

“The truism is that President Tinubu laid the premium golden victory votes which made Buhari president in 2015,” Okechukwu said. “Boss Mustapha was not part of the 2003 or 2011 political realignments and therefore lacks the context to assess Tinubu’s contributions.”

Okechukwu, a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), recounted how Tinubu pledged total support to Buhari during the crucial merger that birthed the APC, leveraging his vast political network across the Southwest.

He revealed that Tinubu had openly told his allies, including Atiku Abubakar and Rabiu Kwankwaso, that Buhari had the strongest electoral base with his consistent 12-million vote bank, and deserved full backing.

Reflecting on past election cycles, Okechukwu recalled how Buhari’s bids in 2003, 2007, and 2011 were plagued by failed alliances and electoral manipulation. The 2011 failed merger talks between the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Tinubu’s Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), he said, resulted in another missed opportunity until the successful formation of the APC in 2013.

“I was part of the CPC delegation during the APC merger talks. We insisted on negotiating only with ACN and were reluctant to include ANPP or others. It took multiple meetings before full consensus was reached,” Okechukwu noted.

He stressed that Tinubu’s strategic intervention and the supplementary votes from the Southwest were essential in securing the constitutional two-thirds majority needed for Buhari to win the 2015 election.

“The rest, as they say, is history. Without Tinubu’s premium supplementary votes, Buhari would not have had the required national spread, and the presidency would have remained elusive,” he concluded.