By John Ugo
The ruling All Progressives Congress has attacked the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 general elections and former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar his comment that what the average northerner needs is a person from the North and not a Yoruba or Igbo Candidate.
The APC described Atiku’s comment as an attack on the national unity and repulsive desperation to become the President at all cost.
In a statement at the Arewa town hall policy dialogue in Kaduna Atiku had declared that “What the average Northerner needs is somebody who is from the North … he doesn’t need a Yoruba Candidate or an Ibo Candidate.”
The APC noted that Atiku’s statement “is a decisive attack on our national unity and that it is beyond the pale for a senior citizen and a former Vice President of the Federal Republic to so brazenly instigate strife and disunity in our country in pursuit of his befuddled political self interest.”
National Publicity Secretary of the
All Progressives Congress (APC), Barr. Felix Morka, in a statement on Sunday said but it is not surprising that such an outburst came from a desperate and serial, failed candidate for the office of President.
He said, “If, as Atiku believes, the average Northerner needs a Northern President now, after a Northern President, when will they ever not need a Northern President? What does Atiku think the average Southerner needs? Why is it about what the average Northerner needs, or even what the average Southerner may need? Why is it not about what Nigeria and Nigerians need? Nigerians need bold and visionary leadership anchored on a firm commitment to transcendental national unity, over and above ethnic or sectional obsessions.
“Atiku’s words ring loud of extreme and mindless desperation, and such an extremely desperate man cannot and must not be entrusted with the most important job of President – a job which core duty is that of leading, uniting and working in the best interest of all in an ethno-religious pluralistic society as Nigeria. Our country does not need this kind of highly inflammable rhetoric now or ever.”
“What is even more confounding is that this Presidential Candidate of the PDP has touted himself to be on a mission to unify Nigeria. The cat has finally been let out of the bag for him that pays lip service to unity while working hard to undermine our national unity. Our Northern citizens and patriots know far better than what Atiku thinks, and will not walk down that slippery slope with him.”
“Evidently, Atiku seeks to inflict on Nigeria discord and strife of a worse kind than he has inflicted on his PDP. Against the dictates of his party’s constitution on the principle of power rotation between and North and South of Nigeria, Atiku wrested Presidential Candidacy and left his party in fractious disability.”
“In direct contrast to Atiku’s schismatic tendency, our Northern Progressive APC Governors stood valiantly in support of the emergence of a Southern Presidential Candidate of our Party in demonstration of patriotic commitment to national unity, equity and fairness. That is what Nigeria needs, now and ever.”
