All Progressives Congress chieftain, Bola Tinubu, has travelled out of Nigeria weeks after declaring his intention to contest the 2023 presidential election, The PUNCH has learnt.
A member of the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Movement’s Working Committees told our correspondent on Friday that the former Lagos State governor travelled overseas to rest and strategise.
The source, who craved anonymity, said, “He (Tinubu) travelled abroad to rest after going around the country for consultations. He travelled to rest and strategise.”
The source, however, did not mention the country Tinubu travelled to. He also said it was not true that the APC leader travelled for medical reason.
Efforts to get the comments of Tinubu’s spokesman, Tunde Rahman, proved abortive on Friday as he neither take calls to his line nor reply a text message sent by our correspondent.
Similar efforts to get the comments of the Director-General of the Tinubu Support Group, Abdulmumin Jibrin, also did not yield results as press time.
The PUNCH had earlier reported that Tinubu, on January 10, visited the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and announced to State House correspondents that he had informed the President of his intention to contest the presidential election in 2023.
Tinubu has since travelled to some parts of the country including Oyo, Niger, and Zamfara states to widen consultations for his political ambition.
He was, however, conspicuously absent on Thursday during the formal inauguration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu Movement’s Working Committees in Ikeja GRA, Lagos.
The movement was conceived and set up by members of Governor’s Advisory Council in Lagos for the actualisation of the presidential ambition of the politician, and launched by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Tinubu, who celebrated his 69th birthday in March 2021, had tripped over his foot and stumbled, crashing between two chairs on arrival at the 11th Arewa House Lecture in Kaduna State.
For over three months in 2021, Tinubu was away in the United Kingdom where he underwent surgery and therapy for a knee injury.
The health condition of the APC leader has since become a subject of controversy with many Nigerians rejecting another President like Buhari who has spent over 230 days in the United Kingdom on health grounds since he came into office in May 2015.
Aside from his heath, Tinubu’s educational qualifications have also been scrutinised lately by many Nigerians.
But many of his staunch supporters have argued that Tinubu is fit to become Nigeria’s President, adding that he is not older than the current President of the United States, Joe Biden, 79; and his predecessor, Donald Trump, 75.
