Former Spokesman to the Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Kassim Afegbua has openly disclosed that the former vice president is not a reliable person and cannot be trusted.
Afegbua who doubles as the ex-Edo State Commissioner for Information and Orientation revealed this through a statement that clearly stated his fact against Atiku as he recounts how the ex-vice president abandoned his party and fled to Dubai after he lost the last presidential election to Muhammadu Buhari.
His full statement reads;
“I read with dismay the statement credited to former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar where he boasted that he would always get the presidential ticket of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP. At a time when the former Vice President should be working towards strengthening the structures of the party for more electoral victories, the only thing that bothers him is all about his selfish aspiration.
“It was only in 2019 that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar emerged as the candidate of the PDP at the PortHarcourt convention when it was decided by the Southern aspirants to allow an All-Northern aspirants to contest the primary election. So the claim that “I will always get the ticket of the PDP”, flies in the face of logic, fact and reality.”
“In 2023, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should be thinking of how to support younger Nigerians from the South of the country to pursue the presidential aspiration of the opposition party.
“Alhaji Atiku has always supported zoning and should not play the ostrich this time because of his selfish aspiration. Power cannot reside in the Northern axis for 16 unbroken years. That will be against the normative order, against justice, fairness and equity. The opposition PDP must copy from the ruling APC in ceding its ticket to the South as a form of gentleman agreement that will promote peace, unity, cohesion and collective responsibility within the party.
“We cannot afford the mistake of 2019 when Alhaji Abubakar abandoned all his foot-soldiers and sought refuge in faraway Dubai. A true political general ought to secure his troops and return them to the barracks after the war to carry out a critical assessment before knowing the next step.
“Rather than borrow a leaf from the Ukrainian President, Zelensky, who has been standing by his Ukrainian nationals, to the extent of carrying AK-47 to the battlefront to secure his country from Russian invasion, Alhaji Abubakar ran away to Dubai and exposed all of us to the threats and intimidation of the monstrous APC in 2019.
“Such a leader cannot be trusted with the responsibility of representing our aggregate interest in the struggle for 2023. No amount of closed-door meetings with former leaders can change the oscillation of the political pendulum in 2023. Except he is being deceived, no former president would support an Atiku Presidency, at a time they all have spoken loudly about fielding a younger President in 2023.
“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar should statesmanly subscribe to the mood of the nation by jettisoning the selfish pressure from those hangers-on and political coupon clippers and rentiers. This is the age of new ideas espoused by upwardly mobile and vibrant Nigerian leaders who are ready to enter the forest to chase bandits or carry AK-47s to secure our dear fatherland.
“Instead of saying youths should compete, he should gloriously pull out and announce his retirement from partisan politics. We want vibrant young leaders like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who will lead from the front and not those who will run away when they hear the sound of the bayonet.”
