The Stupidity Of Zoning Atiku’s Brain

In a desperate effort by some supporters to justify Atiku Abubakar’s 2023 bid for the presidency, they have alleged that the North has been marginalized  by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP from the power equation since the advent of the Fourth Republic and hence their quest for zoning the ticket to him.

In their argument they allege that the North has only enjoyed two and half years of the presidency under the PDP while the rest of the 16 years the PDP held office were enjoyed by the South.

It is shocking that Atiku’s bold bid for the presidency is being diminished by his illogical supporters.

First, this correspondent makes bold to say that there are few individuals in Nigeria who have prepared for the presidency as Atiku Abubakar.

Your correspondent remembers visiting his private office while he was vice-president. The office in Asokoro, Abuja, was at that time opposite the home of the late Chief Tony Anenih where Atiku assembled some of the best brains in Nigeria to decipher his Nigeria project.

Chief Anenih was reported to have taken Obasanjo to the building one night and allegedly whispered that that was Atiku’s Campaign Office. That reportedly was the beginning of the vicious battle between Atiku and Obasanjo.

Indeed, Atiku has been in permanent pursuit of the presidency since his first bid in 1993.

His present sixth bid has, however, been shadowed by clamour from here and there on finding a president of Nigeria from the South after eight years of a president from the North.

The response of some of his more reasonable supporters is that Atiku is about the most viable person to win against any candidate that the All Progressives Congress, APC may bring.

This argument is projected by his enormous network, famed wealth, and marital connections across the country, among many other positives.

However, the most illogical argument is that being projected that the North has been shortchanged by the PDP in the allocation of the presidential ticket.

First, this argument mocks the presidency of Nigeria as a political party heist meant for only members of the political party in power.

This argument was undoubtedly helped when President Olusegun Obasanjo started holding meetings of the PDP Board of Trustees, BoT in the Presidential Villa. Indeed, the desecration of our common heritage in the Presidential Villa, got to its nadir when President Muhammadu Buhari hosted a meeting of the APC National Executive Committee, NEC inside the Federal Executive Council, FEC chamber in June 2020.

Nothing perhaps could have excused that indiscretion of APC officials sitting and perhaps projecting themselves in seats meant for ministers.

President Obasanjo while in office also in a way, sought to bridge the partisan divide with the appointment of opposition party members into his cabinet. Even in the United States it would be foolhardy to say this is the Democratic Presidency or Republican presidency.

Atiku’s supporters fail to rationalize that their principal has crisscrossed parties at all times in his search for the presidency.

Atiku was in PDP till 2006 when he migrated to the Action Congress, AC. He returned to the PDP sometime in 2009 and contested the presidential ticket of the party against the incumbent, Dr Goodluck Jonathan in 2010.

Again, he left the party in 2014 and greatly helped the PDP to lose the presidential election the following year. In 2017, he again returned to the party and was two years later gifted the 2019 presidential ticket of the party.

When he lost the 2010 ticket, the well normally presidential and coordinated Atiku gave one of his most rambling speeches in which he inferred that Jonathan was usurping the turn of the North. That assertion was on the claim that the 2010 ticket in the tradition of the PDP should have remained in the North.

I had admired the argument of Atiku supporters projecting the claim that he is about the best person to win the office in 2023. However, going into the lie about the PDP marginalizing the North diminishes Atiku’s admirable political grit and mocks the Nigerian presidency as a political party swoop.

Even worse, some have even claimed that the Northeast to which Atiku belongs has never produced a Nigerian leader as they comfortably put aside the fact that Sir Tafawa Balewa was from the Northeast.

With Yoruba, Fulani, Igbo wives, Atiku can also easily fit into any of the tribal cocoons, or better, present himself as a unifier.

Even more, some have said that at his age he should have stepped aside and pushed forward a Southern aspirant for the presidency in what could have been his best act of statesmanship. But if he has chosen to contest this time, facts and his worthy legacy as a nationalist should not be sullied by the foolish argument of zoning.

As the online newspaper, GWG reported yesterday, https://gwg.ng/2022/04/01/2023-presidential-ticket-pdp-set-to-throw-out-zoning/ the PDP may have opted not to zone the presidential ticket. That is because Atiku had strategically preempted the committee by his open declaration.

The best thing for Atiku now would be to enter the race as the national leader we have always known him to be.

Any act to pander to illogical zoning sentiments will reduce the esteem many have for him.

Send Us A Press Statement Advertise With Us Contact Us

 And For More Nigerian News Visit GWG.NG