Osita Okechukwu, director general of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), and a founding member of the All Progressives Congress, APC attributed the defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) to Atiku Abubakar’s greed, the party’s presidential candidate.
He said this during an interview with journalists at Abuja on Thursday.
Despite having a strong possibility of winning the 2023 presidential election, he said, Atiku, had political ambitions that made it unlikely for the party to prevail.
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The VON DG said that Atiku’s unwillingness to endorse his old running mate, Peter Obi or any other Southern presidential candidate caused a rift among the opposition party.
“Those intricate webs could have been resolved if Atiku had obeyed the zoning convention, supported Peter Obi or any other Southern presidential candidate it could been simply an all southern bout.
“The Wike Masquerade couldn’t have emerged. That would have meant that the bulk of votes he garnered could have been credited to PDP.
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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 said.
“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.” Ikechukwu said.
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