The Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has been criticized by the Ikenga Foundation for telling northerners not to vote for Igbo and Yoruba presidential candidates.
In a statement, the Secretary-General
Ikenga Foundation, Chief Frank Ahaneku, said Atiku’s comment was tantamount to committing political suicide.
Ahaneku said no sane politician anywhere in the world would commit such political harakiri.
“Ohanaeze is not ready to speak yet, Ndigbo has left their faith and destiny in the hands of God, we are working hard in this election and doing our best.
“The northern voters are awake and they know what is in their best interest.”
“For Atiku and those who think like him in the north, who still threaten others with controversial numbers, don’t know what God has prepared for Nigerians,” he said.
Noting that Ndigbo has always been supportive of PDP in the last two decades since the dawn of democracy, he said, “their quest to be given a chance to become Nigeria’s president through the platform of PDP met a brick wall and was sabotaged with Atiku’s insistence that there is nothing like zoning in PDP and that the field should be left open regardless of all the efforts and commitments of Ndigbo in ensuring the stability of PDP.”
He said that the South East would have benefited from the PDP primaries, but Atiku’s decision to take part in the primaries and his refusal to stand on the right side of history made that impossible.
“This became the first political suicide Atiku committed against himself, against the south-east and his party,” he added.
He further said: “It was at this historic period that providence had another plan for Ndigbo when their son Peter Obi left PDP to continue the pursuit of the presidential quest as a pan Nigerian politician desirous of salvaging the nation in the Labour Party as against Atiku’s second political suicide this time around in Kaduna, telling the northerners not to vote for a Yoruba man or an Igbo man. What a bizarre nationalist and uniting patriot Atiku is.”
Ahaneku said it was this kind of impudence, impunity and speaking with an air of final authority that Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike was fighting and getting support quietly.
“This comment by Atiku about the north going it alone shows his fundamental ignorance of the provision of the constitution of Nigeria, where no one section of the country can elect a President of Nigeria.
“This cannot even stand when he understands the presidential historic realities of the country.”
“The Igbos and Yorubas and the whole of the north need peace and stability in Nigeria, which Atiku doesn’t have the knowledge or capacity to provide.”
“We are going into this election hoping that nothing but the will of God will be done,” he said.
