By Joshua Omoloye
- Denies attempt to exclude South East
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has revealed the reason for rejecting Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as his running mate on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the 2007 presidential election.
This is as the 2019 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) denied working against the emergence of aspirants from the South East as the party’s standard-bearer.
Atiku made the disclosure at a meeting with members of the PDP’s Board of Trustees (BoT) at Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja on Tuesday.
The meeting was at the instance of the Turaki Adamawa who consulted the party organ to seek support for his presidential aspiration once again on the party’s platform.
Trying to exonerate himself from alleged blocking of chances of PDP zoning its ticket to the South East, he emphasized that he has always been an advocate of fairness, justice and equity.
“When I joined the ACN which my friend Bola (Tinubu) was setting up, he gave me a set of conditions for giving me the ticket; that I should make him vice president.
I said no, I’m not going to make you Vice President instead i took Senator Ben Obi. “When I got the ticket again to run, I took another Obi (Peter) coincidentally. So there is absolutely no reason why they should say that there is a deliberate attempt to exclude the South East in political participation or power sharing.
“So I thought I should disabuse your mind and of course, as an enlightened political class. I don’t think that for me, as far as this party is concerned, as far as we’re concerned.
I don’t think there’s any deliberate policy to exclude anybody in this country,” said Atiku. He said the PDP has been an exponent of zoning arrangement in Nigerian politics and had made a lot of sacrifices for zoning. “Yes, people have not stopped talking about power rotation and zoning, or whatever it is.
For sure in the party, we invented and formulated this zoning policy simply because we wanted every part of this country to have a sense of belonging and I personally have paid my dues on the issue of zoning.
“Many of you were members of our government when all the PDP governors came in 2003 and said I should run and I said no. We have agreed that power should remain in the Southwest. Why should I. Some of those governors then that supported me, some of them went to jail, some of them were kicked out of their offices.
We made sure that we kept the policy. He said Nigerians should not stampede the PDP into zoning because it is the originator of the policy.
According to him, it is expedient for the ruling party to zone. The APC cannot do without zoning, he insisted. “So, therefore, you cannot come and try to imply that the PDP has not been following the zoning policy. The many years of PDP government eight years and six years all of them were from the south. So we should not be stampeded by the opposition party, The Trumpet, gathered.
They have a moral obligation which is inescapable.” Calling on the BoT members to support him, he said: “my vision is building bridges across the country. Please join me in building bridges across this country so that every part of this country will have a sense of belonging.
Read Also: New electoral law: Matters arising
“I now wish to call on you to please give me another opportunity to advance all these ideas of our party, well beautiful ideas. So that we will come further to consolidate democracy, unity and development for our country. I cannot thank you enough for coming.”
Chairman of the BoT, Senator Walid Jibrin, also affirmed that PDP is the only party with all democratic principles which include zoning policy. He said the BoT as an advisory organ will work with other stakeholders to ensure the party provides a level playing ground for all presidential aspirants.
Jibrin also advised aspirants on PDP platform to respect party policies and programmes and abide by guidelines and schedule of activities to be released for the 2023 poll.
