#Election2023: I’ve seen Nigeria’s next president – IBB warns Tinubu, Atiku

General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Nigeria’s former Military Head of State has claimed he has already seen the next president of the country.

Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida stressed this during an interview aired on Arise Television. He called on Nigerians to focus on individuals in their 60s come 2023.

Babangida hinted at a few individuals, whom he said had the capacity to lead the country and effectively run its affairs economically and politically.

According to the former military dictator, bad leadership was a major reason for series of socio-economic challenges the country is being faced with.

IBB pointed out that at this point, Nigeria is in dare need of a leader who connects with the people, tries to talk with them and not the one who “talks on top of the people.”

“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,” he said.

“That is a person, who is very verse 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.”

When asked if the person could emerge victorious in the 2023 presidential election, Babangida added, “I believe so if we can get him.”

National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Ahmed Bola Tinubu and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, all above 60s, are among some of the names that have been mentioned as possible replacement for President Muhammadu Buhari when his tenure expires in 2023.

Nicknamed, “Maradona” or “The Evil Genius”, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida GCFR is a retired Nigerian Army general who ruled the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 27 August 1985 until his resignation in August 1993.