VP Osinbajo says running for presidency not “on the cards”

LONDON (Reuters) – Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said on Monday he had not given any thought on contesting the country’s next presidential election in 2019 and had no timeline for when he may make such a decision.

Asked if he considered running for the presidency in the election scheduled for February 2019, Osinbajo said he hadn’t thought about it.

“None of that is on the cards,” he said.

The country has faced heighten uncertainty over whether President Muhammadu Buhari plans to contest the next election. Buhari took power in 2015 but has been absent for much of this year due to illness.

Osinbajo also said that militants in the oil producing Niger Delta region posed no longer a significant threat to oil production anymore.

“We don’t have all the time in the world with oil,” he said, speaking during the FT Africa conference in London. “We have to use oil while it makes sense to do so.”

 

(Reporting By Libby George and Karin Strohecker; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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