President Muhammadu Buhari has reportedly announced Timipre Sylva to succeed him come 2023.

According to Farooq Kperogi, a professor of Journalism at Kennesaw State University, the president told the Aso Rock cabal that he wants the former Governor of Bayelsa State and the current Nigeria Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva to succeed him.

Kperogi says Buhari decided to go for Timipre Sylva because the chances of his first choice of successor, former president Goodluck Jonathan, contesting again has been hampered by legal constraint.

Timipre Sylva

“After realizing that Jonathan can’t legally run for another presidential election, Buhari told the Aso Rock cabal that he wants former Bayelsa State governor and current minister of state for petroleum Timipre Sylva to succeed him. That’s still his preference.”

2023: President Buhari Breaks Silence On Who Will Succeed Him

The professor of journalism said the Aso Rock cabal was flummoxed and appalled by Buhari’s pick of, first, Jonathan and later Sylva as his successor.

“The cabal played along for a while (knowing Buhari’s well-known cognitive impairments and imperviousness to reason) and, at the right time, reminded him that in June 2018 he’d signed into law a “Constitution Alteration Bill Number 16” that makes it unconstitutional for vice presidents and deputy governors who complete the first terms of deceased or impeached and removed presidents and governors to run for election twice” Kperogi wrote in a blog post on Friday, January 28, 2022.

“That law basically makes it illegal for Jonathan to seek another term as president. In fact, it was inspired by his 2015 presidential run after completing Umar Musa Yar’adua’s first term and running and winning a second term in 2011.

He said Buhari is unequivocal on not wanting anything to do with Tinubu and Osinbajo as his successor, his choice remains Sylva.

“He is clear that he wants neither Tinubu nor Osinbajo as his successors. Whether that insistence will have any consequences for the electoral fortunes of Tinubu and Osinbajo in the APC primaries is anybody’s guess” he said

Buhari’s choice of Sylva as his preferred successor places a huge question mark on his own much-touted integrity and uprightness.