Ahead of the 2023 general elections in Nigeria, a coalition of pro-Atiku Abubakar groups Thursday advised the former number two citizen to drop his presidential bid and support a candidate from South-Eastern Nigeria.
The groups are Middle-Belt Network for Atiku, led by Luka Pam and Madaki Yakubu; North 4 North Support Group for Atiku led by Mohammed Garba and Abubakar Sanni; Turaki Arewa Vanguard for Atiku led by Musa Abdullahi and Rabiu Ibrahim; and, South-West Development Frontiers led by Femi Osabinu and Olufemi Lawson.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, Femi Osabinu, convener of the coalition, added that at 77, the former vice president should retire from active politics and instead be a statesman.
Osabinu said: “We make a clear and undiluted call on former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to give a second thought to his desire to contest for the office of president in the elections again in 2023.
“While Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has served the nation with distinction, as evidenced in the fact that we have been his supporters for years, it is also undeniable that at 77 years of age going into this race, it will be a mismatch of national priorities to support his quest, taking into consideration the unique interplay of circumstances currently confronting our country”.
He further stated that Nigeria needs a young and more energetic unifier, who will be able to handle the rigours of being physically present in crises spots to make the physical and psychological statement of the government being in charge and committed to finding lasting solutions to our national challenges.
He added that having served for decades at different levels, up to the highest levels of government and as a very influential vice president, they believe Atiku has done enough for the country, while it was time for him to take a back seat and play the role of elder statesman.
According to Osabinu,” His role, going forward, should be of providing guidance to the younger ones across ethnic, religious and partisan divisions to help build a consensus of what Nigeria should be and how she ought to go about becoming all she can be in the comity of nations.
“We are also not unmindful of the fact that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar abandoned the party structure of the PDP and his support groups post 2019 elections; a clear betrayal of the trust reposed in him as an encapsulation of the sum of their legitimate aspirations and hopes for Nigeria.
We are equally not blind to the optics of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s preferred public association with members of the topmost echelons of the Nigerian elite, showing he has lost touch with the reality of the suffering masses of Nigeria, who are bitten by the current bugs of the economy and the potential drifting of the political ship of state.
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“As a professed lover of the east of Nigeria, having even gone as far as taking a wife from that region, we urge Alhaji Atiku to substitute his personal ambition with overt support for a candidate of eastern extraction.
“The time is now if we must save Nigeria, for a younger candidate to take the saddle and take back our country from a particular set of Nigerians who are in their late seventies and eighties.
The time is now for new thinking to guide Nigeria in the direction that is befitting of 21st-century society, as the giant of Africa and Africa’s largest economy, to play a leadership role in African affairs and in the comity of nations as a whole.
“Our members, in their numbers across the country, are on standby in the various political parties and consulting from outside of the parties to ensure that South-Eastern presidency is achieved in 2023.
“This demand of ours is not an attempt to malign the character of any individual, but a patriotic call based on the mood and need of the nation at this critical moment in the life of Nigeria.
“We believe that Nigeria must get it right and those who have most benefited from Nigeria must pay back by putting national interest above personal ambition.
“The era of individuals holding god-complex in projecting the belief that they have all the answers to the problems of 200 million people spread across over 300 ethnic groups is over; the serious business of nation-building to compete effectively internationally begins now and we will accept nothing short of this position.”
Speaking further, “more than at any other time in Nigeria’s history, the country’s unity is under threat by a collection of centripetal forces, “a situation which can only be addressed by an equitable opportunity at aspiring for the leadership of Nigeria, to give these two regional blocs a sense of belonging to what is today known as the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
“Today, in the face of on-going insurgencies and separatist movements feeding various sentiments that have left the average Nigerian with low morale and uncertainty over the future of the country, it is only fair that there is a power shift to the southern region.
“There have been several calls to that effect, and we hereby wish to lend our voice to those calls, with it is our considered opinion, with Nigeria’s continued corporate existence as a united country under threat, that it is only fair in the interest of fairness and equity rather than majority rule, for power to return to the southern part of Nigeria”.
