2023: Atiku’s Emergence As PDP Candidate Violates Nigeria’s Power Rotation Principle — Tinubu

The All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Ahmed Bola Tinubu has said the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate for the 2023 election violated the country’s long-standing principles of power rotation between the northern and southern parts of the country.

The Director of Media and Publicity at the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council Bayo Onanuga made this known on Monday while reacting to the outcome of a meeting convened by former House Speaker Yakubu Dogara at the weekend with some Northern Muslim groups on the continued controversies surrounding the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC.

The former speaker had said in a statement on Sunday that some Northern Christian leaders in the APC had resolved to work with their Muslim counterparts in the North to adopt one of the opposition presidential candidates in a bid to defeat APC’s same faith ticket.

But Tinubu described Dogara and his group as impostors working for Atiku, whom he accused of working to “snatch and retain the power that belongs to the southern part of the country.”

He noted that a careful reading of the people who attended the “unholy meeting” showed that they were all PDP members, masquerading as APC members.

“All Nigerians are aware that Atiku’s emergence as the PDP presidential candidate grossly violated a power rotation code between the north and the south.

“His insistence on snatching and retaining what rightly belongs to another political region has triggered a crisis within his party, making him run from Port Harcourt to London to mend fences,” he said.

The former Lagos governor stated that Dogara had become confused since he could not realise his self-imposed ambition to be on the presidential ticket of the APC.