2023: Atiku Leads Search For Tinubu As Omo-Agege Demands Withdrawal Of PDP Candidates

The Deputy Senate President and Delta APC Gubernatorial Candidate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has called on the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his running mate, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, to step down.

According to him Atiku has breached the principle of power rotation which envisaged power rotaing to the South after eight years of a Northerner in power. Omo-Agege who is also the APC leader in Delta State also asked the outgoing governor of Delta State to as a consequence resign his slot as vice-presidential candidate.

Atiku in a sharp riposte dismissed the call from Omo-Agege challenging him to rather focus on what he described as the search for the whereabouts of the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

Omo-Agege who is also the Delta State Coordinator, Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council argued that Governor Okowa has by his action of becoming a Vice Presidential Candidate of PDP, betrayed the trust reposed on him by his colleagues and the entire South.

“If PDP senators were serious, they would have first pleaded with their presidential candidate to step down from the race for power to return to Southern Nigeria. By May next year, the North would have ruled for eight years of two terms and it is only fair that power comes back to the South,” Omo-Agege said in a statement issued by his campaign spokesman, Ima Niboro.

The Delta Central lawmaker noted that notable bodies like the Southern Governors Forum, their northern counterparts, social cultural organisations such as Afenifere; Middle Belt Forum, Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and Ohaneze Ndigbo have all harped on the need for Southern Presidency.

He recalled his meeting with elder statesman and former Federal Commissioner for Information, Chief Edwin Clark in July this year, when the Niger Delta leader faulted the PDP for not zoning its presidential ticket to the South.

“Irrespective of political differences, 17 Governors in the South met in Asaba, the capital of Delta State on May 11, 2021, and took far-reaching decisions, including that, based on the principles of fairness, equity and justice, the Presidency should rotate to the South, at the end of the statutory eight years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure.

“Governor Okowa was the host of that historic meeting. The Southern Governors later met in Lagos, on July 5, where they reaffirmed their decision, and again in Enugu, on September 16, to restate the call that the Presidency should rotate to the South in 2023.

“What Nigerians can deduce from PDP jettisoning zoning and giving its ticket to Atiku is that the campaign messages of the party should be taken with a pinch of salt. ‘Trust,’ they say, ‘is like an antique, once it’s broken, it can never be replaced’. The PDP Presidential candidate and his running mate have broken the trust of Nigerians. The honourable thing to do is for the duo to honourably resign and right the wrong.

“It, therefore, didn’t come to us as a surprise that five PDP governors boycotted the inauguration of PDP Presidential Campaign Council in Abuja to register their grievances over the injustice meted to the Southern States of Nigeria,”  Omo-Agege stated.

In a sharp riposte Atiku speaking through his campaign spokesman, Charles Aniagwu said:

“Is power rotation in the Nigerian constitution, and one may ask, why are they focusing on the PDP? Why is he not asking Kwankwaso and others to resign. I think he should focus on solving the issues in his party and primarily helping Nigerians to locate the whereabouts of his candidate as Nigerians are still looking for him.”

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