One of the founding members of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has said that a comment credited to the 2023 Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to support a younger candidate who emerges victoriously through party primary in the 2027 presidential election is a prove that he is an Anti-Democrat.
Saturday Telegraph had earlier reported that Atiku, while addressing journalists in BBC Hausa, stated that “if a younger candidate emerges through a competitive primary, he would support and mentor such a person.”
Okechukwu, who spoke on Friday in reaction to the former Vice President’s comment, described the statement as a prove that Atiku belongs to the class of Anti-Democrats.
The APC chieftain said, “By elevating the so-called ‘competitive primary’ above Nigeria’s cherished rotation and zoning convention – the delicate unity glue that has sustained the Fourth Republic since 1999 – Atiku Abubakar undermines a fundamental pillar of the nation’s democracy.”
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He stressed that the former Nigerian leader has been a direct beneficiary of party rotation and zoning, but surprisingly campaigned against it in 2014, and eventually won the PDP, where he didn’t have any presidential aspirant from the south.
Okechukwu further opined that Atiku jettisoned zoning in favour of “dollarised primary” under the guise of democracy in what he described as “the height of anti-democratic conduct.”
According to Okechukwu, “Among the cardinal tenets of democracy, the first is the unity of our dear fatherland, and the second is the conduct of free and fair elections.
“Atiku is now waving expensive, monetised, and exclusionary primaries as his banner of democracy, while downplaying the very convention that guarantees equity, inclusion, and stability in our plural society.”
He concluded that Atiku’s recent pronouncement confirms the impression that his desire for power is not borne to strengthen our democratic institutions, but rather to erode the very principles that bind it.
