A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, says the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party had bright chances of bouncing back through the 2023 presidential election, but the political greed of the party’s candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, denied the party victory.
Okechukwu, who spoke to journalists in Abuja in reaction to Wednesday judgment by the Presidential Election Tribunal, noted that while he sympathises with PDP, LP and APM, the petitioners, particularly supporters of the PDP and “the LP should not blame the PEPC but His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubukar, whose hubris and greed combined to deny them victory.”
He also noted that Atiku’s failure to rise to the golden opportunity and play as a statesman by throwing support for his erstwhile running mate Peter Obi or any other Southern presidential candidate divided the opposition party, adding, “Atiku dealt PDP a huge blow from which it might be difficult to recover.”
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“Atiku divided PDP’s votes irreparably, all the votes Labour Party garnered were from the party’s stronghold, minus voted warehoused by the former Vice President who naively forgot that northern voters are one of the most sophisticated in the country, but believed that northern electorate would behave like children in a dormitory waiting for directives on how to vote,” he declared.
Okechukwu, who is also the Director General of Voice of Nigeria (DG, VON), remarked that President Tinubu deserves accolades for rescuing the zoning convention which guarantees equity, and natural justice between the north and south.
“To be honest, my take is that the opposition lost the election that day in 2022, when His Excellency, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar trampled on the presidential zoning convention, which governed the 4th Republic Nigeria and was also embedded in his party’s Constitution.
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“Recall that Atiku earned accolades when he stormed out of PDP Convention in 2014 in protest that President Goodluck Jonathan was breaching the zoning convention. And, in 2018, Governor Nyesom Wike hosted PDP Convention in Port Harcourt and ensured that only northern presidential aspirants contested for the presidential ticket as a way of honouring the zoning convention.
“So, it is obvious that when Atiku sacrificed statesmanship on the altar of narrow political ambition, one concluded that he had wittingly or unwittingly fatally wounded the fabric of PDP. And, going by the time worn cliché, a divided house cannot stand, Nigerians should recognise that Atiku by his greed denied PDP a possible victory.”
On the way forward, the APC chieftain suggested a revised Electoral Act that will resolve all evident ambiguities, by mandatorily only electronic accreditation and transmission of results.
“We also need to return to the popular Justice Uwais Handbook on Electoral Reform, which among other fine democratic tenets recommended how best to transparently recruit the INEC Chairman, Commissioners and sundry officials.
“With these altercations, Election Petitions will definitely be concluded before swearing-in of winners.