A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Osita Okechukwu, has said that but for Atiku Abubakar’s greediness, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, could have won the 2023 Presidency.
Okechukwu, who is a founding member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, VON, said the PDP had a bright chance of retaking the Presidency, but ruined it because Atiku refused to cede the Presidential ticket to the South, and especially, to the Presidential Candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi.
Obi was a member of the PDP and Atiku’s running mate in 2019. He was, also, a Presidential aspirant under PDP in 2023, but quit the Party for the LP, a couple of days to the Presidential Primary, when he found out that the PDP had set up all the Southern Candidates for a thorough defeat.
Okechukwu, who spoke in Abuja after President Bola Tinubu’s victory at the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, said Atiku dealt the PDP a deadly blow from which the Party may not recover, by clinging to the ticket.
He said: “Atiku dealt PDP a huge blow from which it might be difficult to recover.
” If Atiku had obeyed the zoning convention, supported Peter Obi, or any other southern presidential candidate, it could been simply an all southern bout.
“The Wike Masquerade couldn’t have emerged.
“That would have meant that the bulk of votes he garnered could have been credited to PDP.
“Atiku divided PDP’s votes irreparably.
“All the votes Labour Party garnered were from the party’s stronghold, minus votes warehoused by the former Vice President, who naively forgot that Northern voters are one of the most sophisticated in the country, but believed that Northern electorate would behave like children in a dormitory waiting for directives on how to vote.”
Okechukwu praised Tinubu “for rescuing the zoning convention, which guarantees equity, and natural justice between the north and South.”
He said: “First and foremost, let me congratulate Tinubu for rescuing the zoning convention, a ligament binding north and south from unprecedented assault.
“To be honest, my take is that the opposition lost the election that day in 2022, when Atiku Abubakar trampled on the Presidential zoning convention, which governed the Fourth Republic Nigeria and was also embedded in his party’s Constitution.
“Recall that Atiku earned accolades when he stormed out of PDP Convention in 2014 in protest that President Goodluck Jonathan was breaching the zoning convention.
“And, in 2018, Governor Nyesom Wike hosted PDP Convention in Port Harcourt and ensured that only Northern Presidential aspirants contested for the Presidential ticket as a way of honouring the zoning convention.
“So, it is obvious that when Atiku sacrificed statesmanship on the altar of narrow political ambition, one concluded that he had wittingly or unwittingly fatally wounded the fabric of PDP.
“And, going by the time worn cliché, a divided house cannot stand, Nigerians should recognise that Atiku, by his greed, denied PDP a possible victory.”
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