By Deborah Coker
The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, will not play to the gallery to score cheap political points for the 2023 Election.
This is contained in a statement by Atiku’s Media Adviser, Mr Paul Ibe.
Ibe reacting after Abubakar was criticised over alleged comments he made over his call for a northern presidency in 2023 as Stakeholders’ Meeting in Kaduna State at the weekend.
“For the benefit of the innocent public who might be hoodwinked, what transpired was a direct question on why Atiku should be voted for by the Northern electorate.
“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, 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,” he further explained.
He said Atiku “stood agile and cerebral” before his hosts at the Arewa House.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the party defended Abubakar, calling him a symbol of national unity, cohesion and tolerance who is comfortable and is loved in all parts of the country.
In a statement by the PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Debo Ologunagba, in Abuja on Sunday, the party condemned the attempt to deliberately distort, doctor, misinterpret and take out of context, the comments by Abubakar at the meeting.
“For clarity and avoidance of doubt Abubakar remains a Pan-Nigerian leader.
”He has never and will never set any part of our country against the other as being mischievously hyped.
“To set the record straight, the PDP Presidential Candidate, in responding within the context of the question put to him at the event noted that he had built bridges across the country and that what Nigerians including an average northerner need was a Pan-Nigerian leader and not an ethnic champion,” the party said.
The party therefore calls on all Nigerians to remain focused on the PDP’s mission to rescue, reunite, rebuild and restore our nation on the path of peace, national cohesion and economic prosperity, which the Atiku/Okowa Presidential ticket represents.”
NAN reports that the All Progressives Congress (APC) 2023 Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) had accused Abubakar of only paying lip service to national unity.
Mr Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Publicity of the council stated on Sunday in Abuja that Abubakar had resorted to ethnic ”jingo” in the face of imminent defeat at the 2023 election.
He stated that Abubakar’s recent statement to the effect that northern Nigerians did not need a Yoruba or Igbo president was the worst expression of ethnocentric opportunism ever uttered by a former vice-president. (NAN)
