2023 Presidency: Tinubu, Atiku In War Of Words Over ‘Northerners Don’t Need Yoruba, Igbo’ Comment

Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Sunday said the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar will disunite Nigeria if elected next president.

The party said this in reaction to a controversial remark reportedly made by Atiku during the Arewa town hall policy dialogue in Kaduna Saturday.

In a viral video of the event, Atiku said: “What the average Northerner needs is somebody who is from the North; he doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate or an Ibo candidate.”

“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,” Atiku was reported to have said.

APC faults ex-VP

Reacting to the statement in Abuja, APC national publicity secretary, Felix Morka, described Atiku’s comments as “decisive attack on national unity.”

Morka said: “Our country does not need this kind of highly inflammable rhetoric now or ever.

“Atiku’s statement is a decisive attack on our national unity. 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.

“But it is not surprising coming from a desperate and serial failed candidate for the office of President. 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 of 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.

“And that is the commitment that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, our Presidential Candidate brings in his aspiration to serve as President. As Governor of Lagos State, his executive cabinet was a rare and admirable reflection of ethnic and religious diversity.

“We are confident he will enthrone equity, fairness, inclusion, and unity as operating national policy when elected as President in next year’s general election, as we urge Nigerians to do.”

 Campaign team

Similarly, the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) said  Atiku’s statement showed  his “desperate resort to ethnic jingo in the face of imminent defeat” in the forthcoming February 2023 presidential election.”

The spokesman, Bayo Onanuga, said this  in an electronic statement made available to Blueprint Sunday in Abuja.

The statement said: “The statement of Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku 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.

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

“We view Atiku’s public declaration which framed him as an ethnic and regional champion as unbecoming for a man who was once a former Vice-President of Nigeria.”

However, the APC presidential candidate’s media office affirmed saying “But we are not surprised by his desperate position. Atiku 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 know 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,” Onanuga said.

Onanuga  said: “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 5 cardinal points of his so-called “Covenant with Nigerians. The facade is over, he is now fully naked before the Nigerian people.”

‘Atiku not speaking for the north’

Also speaking in same regard, a former aviation minister and one of the PCC spokespersons, Femi Fani-Kayode, said the PDP presidential candidate can’t speak for the north.

Fani-Kayode described Atiku as “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.”

Let’s debate issues, Atiku tells APC

But in a statement Sunday by Atiku’s media adviser, Paul Ibe, the former VP described Tinubu’s ambition as an act of disgrace to Nigerians and a rude attack on the integrity of every black country.

Described the alleged APC’s action as regrettable, he said: “For the benefit of the innocent public who might be hoodwinked by the usual behaviour of APC in telling a big lie, what transpired was a direct question to Atiku to address the Northern audience on why he should be voted for by the Northern electorate.”

The statement read in part: “In answering this question, Atiku started with a joke by addressing the questioner as ‘Mr. Northerner’ which is a veiled criticism of why he limited his question to the Northern audience in the first place.

“Continuing, Atiku explained without a slur, unlike the APC candidate would, that what matters the most to the Northern electorate is a candidate who has built bridges of unity across other parts of the country and not necessarily a Northern candidate who lacks the credentials of national spread and acceptability.

“Those were the unambiguous remarks of the PDP presidential candidate. But because the APC does not possess any tangible ideas to campaign on for their candidate, they resorted to dubious tactics of diverting public attention, first, away from the failures of their party in the past seven years plus and, secondly, to shift attention away from the embarrassing gaffes of their presidential candidate in his public communication which they frequently shy away from.

“Of course, a failed political party and a presidential candidate who cannot withstand five minutes of unscripted speech would not have anything tangible to talk about other than to resort to irritating scavenging like they have done in this case.

“On the same day when Atiku Abubakar stood agile and cerebral before his hosts at the Arewa House, the APC candidate whose only entitlement for president is because of an ethnic identity claim was also at a public function in Kaduna State and publicly embarrassed his host, Governor Nasir el-Rufai, by saying that he should not contemplate pursuing higher educational qualifications and likening him to a rotten case that has turned into a bad situation.’

“Are we to play to the gallery, we could have rushed to the press to make a bad case for such rotten remarks. We did not because we know that the upcoming election is not about scoring cheap political gains, but about ensuring that Nigerians have a fair deal in the next president that they will be electing.

“It is even more repugnant that a man who is not honourable enough to make full disclosure about his elementary education records would ask to be elected a president of the most populous Black nation in the world.

“The very ambition of former governor Tinubu to aspire to become the Nigerian leader is a rude attack on the integrity of every Black country and certainly an act of disgrace to all Nigerians.”

Tinubu threat to national cohesion – Campaign team

Also, the former VP said its flag bearer “is the greatest threat to national cohesion and democratic norms”.

Former PDP national publicity scribe and a presidential campaign spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said this Sunday in a telephone chat with  Blueprint.

Ologbondiyan, who said it is the candidate of the APC that better suits the allegations, described Atiku as a known 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 will be chased into the ocean.

“Neither have Nigerians forgotten the threats of ejection from Lagos on the political opponents of Tinubu and the wanton destruction of electoral materials in areas where the former governor’s party would not do well.

“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,” Ologbondiyan said.

Source: blueprint.ng