The Presidential candidate of the incumbent All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, and that of the People’s Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, were at loggerheads recently.
In a recent comment, Tinubu fired a shot at Atiku Abubakar, saying the PDP flagbearer belongs to a fading breed of party which resorts to ethnic and territorial opinions in their frantic efforts to abduct power.
The APC criticized Atiku Abubakar for remarks he allegedly made over the in Kaduna, where he allegedly stated that the average northerner needed a northern President rather than one of Yoruba or Igbo descent.
The ruling party claims that Atiku clearly wants to cause more division and misery in Nigeria than he has done to his political party, PDP.
The Head of News Media at the APC Presidential Campaign Committee PCC, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode in an explanation, said Atiku’s words were not just unsatisfactory but moreover insulting, unreliable and detestable.
In his words, the presidential aspirant aide said, “This is especially so, given the fact that by next year, we will have had eight years of Northern/Fulani rule and now this man (Atiku) says we must have another eight years of it because that is what is’ best for the North’.”
“Most Northerners do not believe this and, thankfully, they, unlike Atiku and members of his divided party, do not see Southerners as slaves, and they regard us all as being equal.”
“We will not allow Atiku to do to us what he did to Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. We will not be cheated nor denied.
“It is time for power to shift to the South and an overwhelming number of the people in the North and certainly all the Northerners in the APC believe that. They recognize the fact that if we want our nation to continue to enjoy peace and remain united into the distant future, we must be fair in our dealings with one another.
“Atiku is a dying breed who still sees things from a regional, ethnic and religious prism. Nigeria has moved on from that and she deserves better. Our nation will not accept an ethnic bigot and tribal champion as their President.
“Atiku Ibn Dubai does not speak for the North, he speaks for his deluded and blind PDP supporters. Nigeria does not need a Northern or Southern President, she needs a Nigerian President and Bola Ahmed Tinubu is that President,” added Fani-Kayode.
ValidViewNetwork reports that playing religious and ethnic card to gain political prosperity is antithetical to the growth and development of the nation. It can further worsen the existing situation thereby creating a wave of uncertainty.
Tinubu in a response statement by the Chief, Media and Publicity of his campaign chamber, Mr Bayo Onanuga, also stated that Atiku’s statement to the fact that Northerners don’t need a Yoruba or Igbo president was the most exceedingly bad expression of ethnocentric pragmatism ever expressed by a previous Vice President of Nigeria.
According to him, this clearly illustrates how much a man respected for the noteworthy office of the Nigerian Vice President could stoop in order to get to the most elevated office in the country.
Mr Bayo Onanuga said: “It confirms the argument that Atiku has feasted on such base, cheap, primordial sentiments to use the masses and the elite of the North as the ladder to ascend to power since 1989 without any dividends to show.”
“Doubling down in his now infamous speech, Atiku said: “What the average Northerner needs is somebody who is from the North and also understands that part of the country and has been able to build bridges across the country. This is what the North needs. It doesn’t need a Yoruba or Igbo candidate. I stand before you as a Pan-Nigerian of Northern origin.’
“In clear terms, Atiku, who stole the PDP ticket, by a similar mindset, has cast himself as a northern candidate, who should solely be supported by the people from his region.”
Atiku’s public statement that positioned him as an ethnic and regional champion is unworthy of a man who formerly served as Nigeria’s Vice President.
However, the APC front-runner claimed that he wasn’t shocked by Atiku’s precarious situation and that the former Vice President had turned to inflaming ethnic feelings because he knew that his chances of winning an election were now a mirage.
“He has himself, not anybody else, to blame for his expected electoral misfortune. First, he broke the fundamental rules of power rotation in his party and the country.
“As if this cardinal sin was not enough, the PDP candidate has remained defiant in the face of pressure by preserving the two topmost posts in his party for people from his region.
“The Nigerian public now knows better that a man who has been campaigning as a so-called unifier of our disparate groups is a tribal jingoist who has now totally eviscerated all pretensions to being a detribalized Nigerian,” Tinubu added.
In a swift reaction, the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Organization’s spokesperson, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, responded to Tinubu’s attack by saying Tinubu best fits the accusations of the APC PCC and its party bearer.
Ologbondiyan said: “Atiku is known across the length and breadth of our nation as a symbol of cohesion, unity, and purposeful collaboration.
“If anything, Tinubu has been an apostle of regional politics where ethnicity and division along religious lines are dominant.
“As a matter of fact, his contemporary politics showcases a blatant disregard for ethnic groupings other than his.
“Nigerians have not forgotten past elections where compatriots who did not share in Tinubu’s ethnic-based political beliefs and proclivities were threatened that they would be chased into the ocean.”
“Neither have Nigerians forgotten Tinubu’s threats to evict political opponents from Lagos, nor the willful destruction of electoral materials in areas where the former governor’s party would perform poorly.”
“It is imperative to state that the campaign of calumny against Atiku notwithstanding, he is the pan-Nigerian leader loved and respected across the six geo-political zones of our nation.”
ValidViewNetwork admonishes the politicians to ensure that the unity of this nation is paramount regardless of their ambition and avoid making inflammatory statements that can set the nation on fire.
ValidViewNetwork (2022)
