Former Vice President Abubakar Atiku has described tribalism as the bane of national progress and a malignant disease that must be shunned at all cost by all particularly the common masses.

This is as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, stated that the elites stand out as the most culpable culprits fostering tribalism as a divisive gimmick to set one tribe against the other, instead of seeing each and every one as one united by one single indivisible nation.

According to Kola Johnson, a Consultant based in Abuja, in a statement, Atiku said the end-point of this divisive antics is geared to achieving their political ambition by asking their fellow tribesmen not to vote for a particular political contestant ‘for being so unfortunate to have hailed from another tribe’ rather than assess him by his sterling qualities.

However, he advised electorate to eschew the deadly malaise of tribalism in choosing and electing their leaders, saying: “Your exclusive point of focus must necessarily bother on the competence of the person based on his antecedents among his numerous qualities rather than what tribe or ethnic group he or she hailed from.”

Against this backdrop, the former Vice President, therefore, advised that “in this coming election, I beseech you all as my esteemed fellow compatriots to vote according to your conscience and never ever allow anyone to subject you to the perverted delusion that you must not vote for a particular candidate just because he is Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba.”

Atiku added: “Even among ourselves, let us begin to cultivate our re- lationship not on the inci- dental question of tribe but as common brothers and sisters united as fellow compatriots through our common belonging to one and indivisible nation.