Presidential Candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has fired back at the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, describing the latter as belonging to a dying breed of politicians who resort to base ethnic and regional sentiments in the desperate bid to capture power.
Head of New Media at the APC Presidential Campaign Council PCC, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode in a statement on Sunday said “such tomfoolery is rarely not seen from the worst amongst us”.
Atiku had at the weekend in Kaduna during an Interactive Session with Arewa Joint Committee, allegedly said northerners need someone of his stature and not a Yoruba or Igbo president.
However, Fani-Kayode said Atiku’s word are not only unacceptable but also insulting, irresponsible and despicable.
“This is especially so, given the fact that by next year we would 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 Wike. We will not be cheated or 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 and his PCC. Nigeria does not need a Northern or Southern President, she needs a Nigerian President and Bola Ahmed Tinubu is that President”, added Fani-Kayode.
Ethnocentric opportunism
Tinubu in a separate statement by the Director, Media and Publicity of his campaign council, Mr Bayo Onanuga noted that Atiku’s declaration to the effect that Northerners don’t need a Yoruba or Igbo president is the worst expression of ethnocentric opportunism ever uttered by a former Nigerian Vice President.
According to him, this clearly demonstrates how low a man honoured with the second highest office of the Nigerian Constitution is willing to sink in search of a perennial wild goose chase after the highest office in the land.
He 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 Northerner 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”.
Tinubu noted that Atiku’s public declaration which framed him as an ethnic and regional champion is unbecoming of a man who was once the Vice-President of Nigeria.
The APC standard bearer however said he was not surprised by Atiku’s desperate position, adding that the former vice president has resorted to whipping up ethnic sentiments, knowing that his chances of being elected have become 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 detribalised Nigerian.
“He is demonstrably the antithesis of a pan-Nigerian politician. Nigerians of goodwill, who, daily, seek a united and prosperous nation, should reject Atiku and his party at the polls next February.
“Atiku only pays lip service to national unity, despite that it features as one of the five cardinal points of his so-called ‘Covenant with Nigerians’. The facade is over, he is now fully naked before the Nigerian people”, Tinubu added.
